Year of Stress
by Ash Berlitz
Summary: The basketball championships are going to occur in two days. But, Ash has his personal problems behind him, including work with Dawn. How will he continue in Highschool? Read to find out. Pearlshipping fic with some contestshipping and egoshipping. Takes place in Highschool.
1. Chapter 1: Preparations

**I do not own any of the characters made here by Pokémon or anything related to Pokémon. This is not intended to offend Ikarishippers! (You can skip basketball scenes if you want, some of them are fun to watch, though!)**

* * *

 **Ash Ketchum** is a 16-year-old boy. He is very interested in playing sports, and his favorite sport is basketball. Unfortunately, he doesn't like school subjects that much except for science. Ash Ketchum wears a red hat with the Pokémon symbol on it. He has a white shirt covered by a black jacket with a yellow V curved line on it in the middle. He wears blue jeans, has black hair and brown eyes. Ash has four friends named Gary, Drew, Misty, and May. His best friend is Dawn.

 **Dawn Berlitz** is a 15-year-old girl. She is interested in playing in the band and loves a lot of music. Dawn likes to play volleyball often and loves to socialize with her friends in free time. She loves going to school to do work and make friends. Dawn wears a white beanie with the pink Pokémon symbol on it. She wears yellow hair clips and a pink scarf. Dawn wears a black dress with a pink skirt and wears pink boots. She has blue eyes and dark blue hair. Dawn has the following friends: Misty, May, Gary, and Drew. Her best friend is Ash.

 **Gary Oak** is a 17-year-old boy. He is obsessed with sports. He loves football and mostly basketball. He hates school work; he treats it like garbage. All he wants to do is become a famous player in basketball; he is also the team captain of the basketball team. Gary Oak wears no hat, but has a medium spiky brown hair, a black shirt, wears dark blue jeans and Adidas sports shoes. He has coal-like eyes. His friends are Ash, Drew, May, and Dawn. His best friend is Misty.

 **Misty Waterflower** is a 15-year-old girl about to turn 16. She whines a lot about basically anything that she doesn't like. She enjoys school only for socializing. She is interested in any sports that involve her friends. She is an argumentative girl; she will start arguments quite often. Misty wears a yellow shirt with blue shorts. She wears high-cut sneakers. She has orange hair and dark cyan colored eyes. Her friends: Ash, Drew, Dawn, and May. Her best friend is Gary.

 **Drew Hayden** is a 16-year-old boy. He is a ladies' man; he talks about every girl he sees in the school. Not only that, Drew is interested in basketball too. He is a genius in math, science and subjects school has to offer. Drew spends most of the time studying a lot. He tries to look as fresh as possible to get girls hopefully to like him. I wonder how that will work out. Moving on, Drew has green hair, no hat. He wears a suit; the outside is light purple, and his inside shirt is black. Drew wears black trousers and wears fashion boots. He has green eyes. His friends: Ash, Gary, Dawn and Misty. His best friend is May.

Last but not least! **May Maple**. She is a 15-year-old girl. She has some difficulties in sports and some subjects; she often studies at home. May likes to give advice and help people. She whines a lot and squeals to a lot of things. May additionally shows interest in sports. Her personality is friendly and doesn't like to talk about things she hates. May wears a red Adidas sports shorts with a bag hooked beside her waist. Blue shorts, blue sports shoes and she has brown hair and blue eyes. Her friends: Ash, Gary, Dawn, and May. Her best friend is Drew.

The basketball championships are going to occur in 2 days; the basketball team has been training hard ever since. They have won 13 games and lost two games. They are practicing more for the playoffs. The weekend is over and today being a school day. The coach of the basketball team Mr. Norman.

The school schedule works like this

Period 1: Planned class

Period 2: Planned class

Period 3: Planned class

Period 4: Planned class

Period 5: Lunch

Period 6: Planned Class

Period 7: Planned Class

Period 8: Planned Class – School ends

There are six school days on the schedule.

Ash's alarm clock rings. "Ugh, shut that alarm clock!" Ash hits the alarm clock causing it to stop ringing. He sighs in relief and falls fast asleep until the alarm clock rings again even louder. Ash fell off his bed, angered by the alarm clock. "I swear to God; I'm going to get rid of that alarm clock real soon."

Ash gets up and heads downstairs to see what his mom made for breakfast. "Sweet! Bread with peanut butter and jam, nothing can get better than this mom, thanks!"

"Your welcome dear, you need a good breakfast before heading to school. Otherwise, you will be like a sleeping bat in class and do nothing but get in serious trouble. Breakfast gives you the nutrients you need to start a perfect day, young man." Of course, that is my mom Delia. She is very smart at life; she does everything to make me not look like a loser in school, Ash is not bothered by this.

Ash is soon done eating his breakfast and prepares his clothes to go off to school. Upstairs he goes to wear his casual clothing; he gets his lunch bag made by his mom and puts it in his backup, including his water bottle.

"Dear, do you have everything ready? Do I need to explain the list? The list is; lunch bag, water bottle, your binders, st- "She was interrupted by Ash "Yes, yes yes. I get it, mom. I have everything set." Ash rushes swiftly to get to the door.

"Okay cya, mom! I'm going to school now." Ash says. Delia happily nods.

 **Meanwhile, in Dawn's house.**

Dawn's Piplup tells dawn to wake up.

"What, OH! I'm excited about school! I hated the weekends; I couldn't do anything but watch TV all the time in my boring damn 'vacation'" Piplup as usual, confused for why she is so happy to go to school.

"Hi, mom! What did you make for breakfast?" Dawn says.

"Hello Dawn, I made you your favorite breakfast, pancakes!" Her mom is no other than, Johanna. A very helpful mom, always ready to prepare Dawn for her school and studies.

"OH MY GOD! Thanks, mom!" Dawn begins to eat the pancakes with such delight. It was like she was in a complete world of pleasure and taste. Her mom was seen giggling.

Dawn finishes eating breakfast and prepares her stuff for school; she is ready by the door to leave.

"See you later mom!" Dawn says.

"Love you dear," Johanna says, waving goodbye.

 **Gary's house.**

Gary wakes up by himself in bed and sees that he is going to be late for school. Gary was unable to hear his mom yelling at him to wake up.

"JESUS CHRIST!" Gary runs to the kitchen and sees his breakfast is already made.

"Thanks for the nice food, I really have to go before I get late!" His mom that is frustrated with him replies back.

"Gary! This happened a lot of times; you got to stop waking up so late, learn to set up an alarm!"

"Yeah, sorry. I don't have time for that." Gary instantly goes to get his supplies for school.

"Alright, cya mom!"

"Goodbye dear."

 **Misty's house**

Misty wakes up by her alarm clock, she finds its natural and gets out of bed casually while saying no words. Misty heads to eat breakfast.

"Thanks, mom, for making breakfast," Misty said.

"Your welcome, always glad to serve you." She said, happily smiling.

Misty prepares her supplies for school and heads off waving goodbye to her mother and her mother waving goodbye back.

 **Drew's House**

Drew wakes up annoyed by his alarm clock. He sighs. "I wish I had more damn sleep, going to school is boring." Drew gets up and heads down for breakfast.

"What did you make for today mom?" Drew asked.

"Waffles and milk with cereal, you will love it!"

"I surely will!" He begins to eat breakfast. Drew adored it.

Drew has finished eating breakfast and heads to get changed into his casual clothes for school. He also prepares his backpack and school supplies.

"See you later, mom."

"Goodbye!"

Drew went off to school.

 **May's House**

May fell off her bed when her alarm clock scared the crap out of her. "AHH! Oh wow, I wish this alarm clock did not exist for eternity!"

May smells the great sense of breakfast and immediately heads to down to the table

"Hey mom, I could smell the wonderful breakfast from my room!" May said, excitedly.

"Yep, it is your favorite! Boiled eggs with bacon and milk!"

"SWEET!" May squeals and immediately starts eating her breakfast. She has finished eating breakfast and of course, begins preparing for school. She exits her house waving goodbye.

Ash, Gary, and Drew are waiting at the bus stop.

"What is up GUYSSS!" Gary says.

"Nothing much," Drew said.

"Well, nothing much for me too. Except that, I am a bit excited to go back to school again."

"Really? That is bad." Gary said, with an ugly annoying expression on his face.

"Hey, enough with talk, our bus is here," Drew says, pointing at the incoming school bus.

"Hey! Where are the- "Drew interrupts by yelling. "They are over there! They are damn slow pokes!"

The girls reach the bus exhausted after sprinting.

"Typical girls. They are always taking forever with their breakfast." Ash, Drew and Gary laugh.

"Shut up idiots; we don't look like a mess up when arriving at school when its Monday, on the other hand, you guys rush everything making you look bad!" Dawn says, angered by what they said.

"Yeah, give some respect to the ladies!" May says.

"Whatever." The boys said. The bus continued on its route to high school. The bus has reached its destination, and everybody is now dismounting off the bus.

"Sweet ol' high school," Gary says.

"Yeah, get ready for our torture by classes," Misty said, with a bored and frustrated expression.

Everybody begins to unpack their stuff in their lockers and gets their supplies for the classes they are about to attend.

"Hey, Dawn. Did you do anything fun on the weekend?" Ash said.

"Ugh, nothing. All I did was watch TV all day long; the weekend was boring for me."

"Oh, well I feel sad for you."

"Anyways, let's head to our class."

Ash and Dawn's friends are all in the same class. The current class was science.

"Hello, students! Welcome back from your weekend." The person right here is Professor Oak, the science teacher. He does a lot of cool scientific experiments, some of them are so cool that this is the best class, and sometimes his experiments go horribly wrong and cause a semi-huge explosion that has damaged the science room before. It had to be fixed plenty of times due to experimental failures; luckily nobody was injured from experiments gone wrong. Professor Oak gets extremely stern and angry like a bulldog when students don't listen to him. He has the strictest class when nobody pays attention to this type of teacher. But, also, the fun class when everybody does pay attention. The gang also known as; Ash, Gary, Drew, Dawn, Misty and May have been participating in a group of six to finish a model of metals that conduct electricity, and they also had to make a machine that creates electricity, it was not easy. The class was taught about asexual reproduction, chemistry, laws of physics, atoms, chemical reactions and how to make formulas and other things. The next unit in this class will be revealed right now. Ash and Dawn's friends are excited to see what lesson they will be taught for today.


	2. Chapter 2: Scrimmage

The next unit the class is about to learn is atomic structure. The entire class had no idea what atomic structure was. They were hoping it is an easy assignment. Professor Oak starts to teach the class about atomic structure.

"Alright students, we are going to represent an atomic structure using a Bohr model diagram. A Bohr model is an electron configuration of an atom and to show the orbits of electrons. The Bohr model is highly theoretical; we won't use it for long. There are protons, neutrons, and electrons in each atom. To find the number of neutrons, you subtract the atomic mass by the atomic number/protons. The atomic number equals the number of protons."

The class was getting incredibly bored at this moment, some of them even worried because they don't understand a single thing that the teacher is saying. After an hour of the atoms lecture. The bell finally rings.

"FINALLY!" May said, profoundly bored and devastated by the lecture.

Misty looks at May. "Hey, you can't get away from this class, it's not over till the end of school!"

"Ugh." May shrugs off into her locker.

"HEY ASH! LOOK WHAT IT IS! WE GET BASKETBALL PRACTICE MAN!" Gary yells like a man on fire.

"Great! A FREE CLASS WOOO" Ash says, excited and happy.

"I got band class." The girls say.

"Band class? Pfft." Drew trash talks about band class every day.

"SHUT UP!" All the girls say.

Drew somehow surprised. "Fine." The gang goes to their corresponding classes.

 **MEANWHILE IN BASKETBALL PRACTICE**

"Alright boys, start shooting some hoops!" Gary said. The boys nodded. They began to shoot shots inside the three-point line; some were free throws, and some were outside the three-point line. Ash has a 70% chance of making a three-pointer. Everybody watches Ash shoot three-pointers in after another. Some are cheering for Ash.

"STOP STEALING THE SHOW ASH, THIS IS PRACTICE! ALRIGHT BOYS, TIME TO PRACTICE PLAYS!" Gary yelling. The team begins to practice plays and positioning for their next game. Ash somehow trips over someone and his head bangs on the floor. The boys look at him and help him up.

"Are you alright? Jesus, you were so nervous about getting into your position which caused you to fall directly on your head. That sounded painful!" Drew said, worriedly. "Yeah, I'm alright. I'm lucky I didn't fall that hard." The team continued practicing in basketball. Soon they switched to dribbling and starting doing close shots.

"Let's do three vs. three. Best of 10 to win, Ash if you lose, you have to tell me who you like." Gary said, with a smirk on his face. Ash was worried and determined not to lose. The team started to do three vs. three. Ash gets the ball and goes by two students and does a simple layup getting an instant two points for his team. While Drew, shoots a three-pointer on Ash's team and lands it in. The score is 3-2. Looking bad for Ash. His teammates are passing the ball around, preventing the opposing team from stealing it. Ash receives the pass and attempts to dribble but his ball got taken by the opposing team, and they prepare to score. A member of the opposing team breaks through the teammates of Ash and does a slam dunk. 5-2. Ash gets the ball and moves up forward. Ash looking around to pass to someone, but every defender is covering his teammates tightly, and he was about to be rushed by Drew. He had no choice but to do an incredible stupid shot. Ash shoots a three-pointer and COMPLETELY misses the board. The entire basketball team was laughing. Ash felt embarrassed, instantly retreating to defense.

"Wow, what was that Ash?! That was the world's most stupid shot ever; now you made the opposing team ready to score again!" Gary said, laughing.

"Shut up! The pressure was too real that's why!" Ash is attempting to find excuses to cover his embarrassment.

An opposing member shoots the ball but gets blocked by Ash. Now Ash is wide open, instantly dribbling towards the net, no defender to stop him. He somehow misses the layup and fails to score; his teammates are looking at him in disgust and dishonor.

An opposing team member is wide open and rushing for the net. The opposing member goes up and releases the ball to do a layup UNTIL ASH FROM HALF COURT RUNS AS FAST AS HE CAN AND BLOCKS THE BALL SENDING IT BOUNCING OFF THE BACKBOARD AND FLYING OUT OF BOUNDS! Everyone was yelling "OHHHHHHHHHH!" When Ash did that fantastic block.

"I'm very sorry teammates; I'm just not feeling it today! UGH, I GOT TO TRY HARDER THAN THIS!" Ash said, yelling in frustration.

Gary receives the ball and begins to dribble towards Ash's team. Luckily, this time, one of his teammates steal Gary's ball and start their formation.

"S1!" Ash said a team code; it means to set up a screen. One of his teammates stands beside the opposing player to block him from going to the right. Ash immediately goes to the right, and the defender falls back behind. Ash is wide open for the shot, but decides to pass to one of his teammates, and they get the layup. The score is 5-4. Ash is feeling confident now.

The opposing team begins to get open for shots and tries to drive Ash's defense crazy. One of the opposing teammates were open, and they got an easy basket. Now the score is 7-4. The score is not looking good for Ash; a three-pointer can mean game over for Ash. He surely had to do something.

His team sets up their formation. Ash looks for someone to pass to since he is the point guard, but sees nobody open. And he had two defenders going straight for him, and two of his teammates were in a bad position that one defender covers them. Ash does a crazy shot again; he shoots the three-pointer and this time, he makes the basket. 7-7. Ash is yelling in happiness and confidence.

"COME ON TEAM, WE GOT THIS!" There goes Ash with his words of encouragement. Sadly, the opposing team got an open shooter; it was Gary. He shoots the three-pointer and lands it in. 10-7. Ash's team loses. And now Ash has a nightmare, tell who he likes to the basketball team.

"You lost Ash, tell me who you like," Gary said, smirking once again.

"No, I will not!" Ash immediately leaves the gymnasium.

 **Band class**

Professor Birch tells the class to set up their instruments. Dawn, May, and Misty sit beside each other. Dawn plays the clarinet. May plays the flute, and Misty plays the flute as well. The other students in the class play trumpets, drums, saxophones, trombones, alto sax, other types of sax, tuba and other instruments. The class is getting taught about music notations, and today was their band test.

"Class, we are going to be doing the band test today!" Professor Birch says with a smirk on his face. The entire class was whining, they were nervous and anxious to play in front of everybody, but they had to do it. For the marks on their report card. The test is one minute of playing.

The first one to be called up was a student named Paul. He performs the test entirely, in sync with each note, following all notations right. He scores an automatic 8/8 on the band test. Paul looks at Dawn, smirking. Dawn looks away from Paul in disgust.

It was Misty's turn to play. She was so nervous that she forgot to set her instrument correctly, she fixes that first before starting. Then she performs the test, some of her notes were imbalanced, some not in sync, her sound was flat, tuning issues and forgot to slur some notes. The class is secretly holding their laugh back. Misty scores a 3/8 on the band test.

May and Dawn were two times as nervous as Misty because she scored such a bad mark. Unfortunately, it was Dawn's turn to play. She was feeling extremely nervous; she felt like the agony of possible embarrassment, she would be the laughing stock of this school. Dawn took a huge breath, and then begin to play the test. Her notes were in sync, the sound was perfect, tuning was perfect, but forgot to slur a few notes. She scores 7/8. At least she was not the laughing stock.

It was May's turn to play. She was more nervous because she had to be the same skill level as Dawn or else students would make fun of her behind her back. She held up her flute and began to play. Some of her notes were already off sync, some were late, some were too early. Her tuning was flat for a moment; she slurred all the notes correctly. May gets a 4/8 in the class. Some people were secretly laughing behind their stands.

The bell rings in the school, indicating a class change. First, it was 10 minutes of free time.

Ash, Gary, and Drew sit at a table.

"Hey Ash, a deal is a deal, tell me who you like."

"Fine, I'm doing this because you can't stop annoying me. Ugh." Ash was shaking nervously, afraid that they will spread this like wildfire. "I like… Dawn." The boys' eyes widened.

"Ooo Ashy boy likes someone! I will keep it as a secret; I don't want to ruin it." Gary said whispering.

"Wow, you like Dawn eh? We will help you get her. That's why we are your friends. We will only do it if you show you improve in basketball." Drew said, smiling.

"Fine," Ash said, with some relief.

The three girls came over to the table Ash and his friends were sitting.

"What's up guys?" Misty said.

"Well, this day has been going pretty well," Drew said, smiling.

"Why are you so happy Drew?" May asked.

"None of your business," Drew said, smirking towards Ash. He immediately shook his head as a signal to tell him not to blow the secret.

"Let's eat our snacks already," Dawn said. The group began to eat their meals; Ash had a quickly made sandwich to eat. Dawn had some crackers, Gary had military protein food as his snack, the group was looking at him in an unusual way. Drew had an apple for his snack; May had cookies and Misty had a banana.

"Is there a problem? Never seen someone eat military food to become muscular?" Gary begins to flex to show his muscles. Only Misty was surprised. The group shrugged off to eat their snacks.

 **The bell rings once again, signaling that free time is over.**

The group begins to head to their dreaded class, math. The teacher of Math was Ms. Juniper. She is a very nice math teacher; she tries her best to get students to pass the math course. She doesn't easily get ticked off by students not listening to her. Instead, she just waits and lowers down your marks on how long she has to wait. Ms. Juniper has taught plenty of math lessons, grade 10 algebras, linear equations and relations, similarities and other forms of math things. The class is currently doing an assignment on linear inequalities.

There are new seating spots, Ash is now told to sit beside Dawn, and the others were told to sit somewhere else. The so called 'cool kids' are at the back of the classroom doing everything they can to pass the math course and of course, to pick on people. But this was no ordinary math class.

Dawn begins to sweat when Ash is sitting close to her. Dawn starts to think in her mind; why am I sweating? Is it because of Ash? I'm feeling something in my stomach; I don't know if it is a good feeling or bad feeling. Dawn begins to glance at Ash when he is not looking; she stares at him for a few seconds before going back to work. She couldn't stop staring. Maybe I like Ash? Dawn slaps herself on the face; Ash immediately looks to Dawn. Immediately Dawn was blushing and looking the opposite direction. Crap Ash, stop staring at me! Right now is a very wrong time! Dawn is writing random things like she is pretending to do the math. Ash confused, goes back to what he was doing before. Dawn breathes a sigh of relief. She begins to work now.

May and Drew are working together in Math. May asks Drew for help on a question.

"Drew, what is this issue? Two x is greater than eight."

"Simple, May. Let the genius help you!" May was rolling her eyes. "All you got to do, is divide 2x by 2 and whatever you do to one side you must do it to the other! Divide 8 by two as well, and your answer would be X is greater than four."

"Thanks, Dre- Drew." She said, blushing. The class began to work ahead of time to finish the math assignment.


	3. Chapter 3: Work Issues

The bell rings, signaling that math class is over and time for next class.

The current period is ELA. The teacher in this class is Mr. Elm. He is a very smart educator and is strict at sometimes; he also makes a few jokes in class. He wears glasses, looks like he was a genius inventor, but in reality. He is just an ELA teacher that knows how to do things very well; his teaching is so advanced, very sophisticated and high level that the class is not old enough to understand him. The class is doing a chapter analysis on "Mice and Men."

A lot of the students in this class are already far ahead and have finished most of the chapter review. There are groups for the section review. They are Group 1: Ash, Dawn, and Gary. Group 2: May, Misty, and Drew. The others are in different groups.

Group one has not been doing well. Lately, we were lazy to do any work except for Dawn, now we are working at the last minute. We are rushing the group work so fast; there is going to be a high chance that we have over 50 plus mistakes.

"Ash! Why did you decide to do your part at the last minute?!" Dawn said, glaring at me.

She looks cute when she is angry. Wait, what the heck did I just say? Ash snaps out of his mind and pays full attention to Dawn.

"It's because I had so much basketball practice that's why. Stop bugging me about it." Ash said frustrated

"Erhm." Gary coughed, looking at Dawn and Ash with a worried expression on his face. Apparently, Ash knew what this meant. It said an argument is brewing, and it's about to explode.

"Dawn, just give me a few more minutes, I'm almost finishing my part," Ash said, in a rush.

"You know what Ash, I'm sick and tired. I had to do all the work here, and you finish at the last minute? You are the reason why we lose marks!" Dawn yelled and stormed out of the classroom.

"Damn, Ash; that went pretty smooth," Gary said, laughing.

"Damn it; I messed up very badly," Ash said with his hands on his head, in a depressed state.

Everyone is whispering in the class and decided to look at Ash.

"WHAT ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT?" Ash yelled. Immediately everybody goes back to doing their work, and the teacher sent Dawn and Ash to the office.

"Holy, I wonder what was all that about?" Drew surprisingly asked.

"Yeah, that was pretty shocking." May joins the conversation. The others nod at what May said.

 **Meanwhile in the Office.**

We are heading to the principal's room. The principal is Brock. A very strict man, always wearing his formal suit and tie. He does not tolerate any immaturity, he is always busy and has to handle all sort of problems in the school. The principal is something you don't want to deal with when you are sent to the office for doing something wrong.

"Why are you two in my office?" The principal said, glaring at both of them.

"BECAUSE THIS STUPID- "Dawn immediately gets interrupted by the director.

"HEY! NO INSULTING ANYBODY!" The principal slams his desk.

"FINE, It's because Ash didn't start his work and had to finish at the last minute while I'm the one doing all the work and trying to keep the group moving. This is in ELA class, Mr. Brock," Dawn said, upset.

"DON'T BLAME ME, you are rendering me and Gary useless because you are taking up the role of our jobs, you should let us do a job at least rather than you taking up all available jobs in an attempt to show that you are smart, in fact, you are not!" Ash shouted.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAID?! ASH YOU ARE A DENSE IDIOT, WHO DOES NOTHING BUT PLAY BASKETBALL FOR A LIVING." Dawn yelled and gave Ash a death stare.

"ENOUGH!" The principal interrupts. "You both are guilty, stop screaming in my GOD DAMN office, from now on, I don't want you both to say a single word. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? If I see you both fighting again, I will suspend you from school. Now get out of my office and head to your class." The principal angrily said. Without even telling them to apologize.

 **Ash and Dawn return to ELA class just to get greeted by a course rotation bell. It was Physical Education.**

They both arrived at their class, awkwardly, the girls sat on one side of the gym while the boys sat on another side of the gym.

"Ash, what happened?" Drew asked. Ash stays quiet and does not respond. The teacher told the class that they were going to do a basketball scrimmage. The teacher randomly sorts the teams; team 1: Ash, Gary, Kenny, Barry, and May. Team 2: Misty, Dawn, Drew, Paul, and Zoey.

Before the match begins, Dawn was the tallest on her team, so she is sent to do the tip off, and since Ash is the tallest on the team, he is sent to do the tip off too. Ash and Dawn are glaring at each other with anger; Ash looks at the referee, and he releases the ball, Ash immediately smacks it to one of his teammates, team one with the ball. Ash receives the pass by his teammate and goes for the layup until out of nowhere; Dawn blocks his layup and team two receives it. Ash immediately glares at Dawn and from this point, Ash is getting furious.

In team two, Zoey receives the ball and passes to Dawn, she then passes to Misty and passes back to Dawn. She jumps to shoot the ball into the net; shockingly, the furious Ash blocks her ball and sends it flying out of bounds.

Ash sees Dawn and pushes her out of the way and scores a slam dunk. Dawn's friends helped her up and looked at Ash disgusted by his rude actions. Dawn is having emotional damage by Ash's actions, she just wants to quit the basketball game and cry home, but decides to keep playing. She wouldn't want to lose this quickly to Ash.

Everyone on the court fears Ash; they never saw him this furious. Ash almost hurt Dawn's feelings but decided to hold back her tears to prevent embarrassment. 10 minutes later, team one has won 21-7. Gary and Drew head to Ash to talk with him.

"Ash, I know you are furious, but you got to stop. Do you realize you are hurting Dawn at this moment right? It is best if you apologize." Drew said, worriedly of his response.

"I AM? That's g- "Ash calms down and thinks about what he has done. Now he begins to regret his actions but is not willing to apologize easily.

Meanwhile on the girls' side.

"Dawn, are you crying?" Misty said, worried. Dawn looks like she is crying, but she is sorrowful and depressed about what happened.

"No, I'm not!" Dawn said, raising her voice a bit louder.

"Ash is furious, it is- "Dawn leaves, ignoring her friends.

"May, we got to do something!" Misty said, getting much more worried now.

"Hold on. I'm thinking. Perhaps we should wait for Ash to calm down until he realizes the emotional pain he caused to Dawn, then we can tell Ash to apologize." May said.

"Good plan, I hope everything gets fixed soon."

It was lunch time. The boys are sitting at their table and the girls at another table. They were discussing the recent fight against Ash and Dawn. They were also talking about other things. Everybody is having fun socializing while Ash is utterly silent, unresponsive and eating his food slowly.

Drew in his thoughts; "Hm strange, usually if Ash is mad about something, he would discuss it with us and trash talk about the person that made him angry. This is a new side of Ash I'm spotting right here, he is unresponsive, I bet he thinks that Dawn will not forgive him. He does like Dawn that much,"

May and Misty are whispering to each other about Dawn. "Hey, Misty. Dawn rarely gets mad at anything, even if she had someone insult her for an hour. She would usually laugh about it and talk to us about it. Why is Dawn feeling this way now?" May asked.

"Well, we will have to investigate more to find out," Misty said with a sad expression. The girls continued to eat their lunch until Paul came to Dawn.

"Sup, Dawn. You seem like you are in pain, what happened? You can tell me; I see it was Ash that made you so sad,"

No answer from Dawn.

"Ok then." Paul leaves with an evil smile on his face.

"Why is Paul smiling like that?" Misty said.

"I think he is planning something and it might not be a good thing. It best we keep our heads up." May said, suspiciously.

The bell rings, and it was another 10-minute free time.

It was social studies class.

The students here were studying about politics. They were learning about the three types of governments and different research topics that they were assigned. The teacher here always had to give work right after you finish an assignment, primarily; non-stop work.

Everybody had to do research on the types of government in the lab. Everyone was working by themselves because that is one of the goals of the assignment; to study alone. Some students were bored, lazy and talking the entire class. A lot of students are bothered by the students at the back of the computer lab; they just couldn't stop talking. The teacher here doesn't even care.

Dawn sat with Gary and May; the others took a seat in other spots. May warned Dawn that Paul is planning something up his sleeve, Dawn nodded. On the other hand, Ash was silent the entire class; everybody is wondering why.

The class proceeded with their work, talking about the research and other things. Some of the students were shouting in the class saying: "Kenny likes Dawn!" Dawn didn't even react to this; she was a bit surprised, but she didn't felt the same for Kenny. Dawn didn't like him, Kenny is not the type for Dawn, she doesn't like his clothes, he dresses up like he was beaten up on a road or something, he also has bad breath, another reason why Dawn doesn't like him. May and Misty already know that Dawn doesn't like Kenny.

Drew was helping Ash on completing his assignment, Drew finishes his research, Ash seems pretty calm at the moment.

"Ash, I really think you should apologize to her now," Drew said.

"I don't want to; she won't forgive me for what I have done," Ash said, hopelessly.

"I'm sure she will forgive you."

"How are you so sure about that? I really want to apologize to her, but I'm afraid she hates me forever now."

"I have seen her a lot of times; I saw her depressed state. I'm sure she would forgive you."

"Whatever." Ash finally said, ending the talk.

The bell rang, signaling the next class.

Everybody got up, started packing their stuff, heading to their lockers and getting their supplies for the last class before heading home.

Ash was busy thinking if he should apologize. "It was my fault, I should have done something in the group, I should not have insulted her like that, I should not have pushed her in basketball, I don't even think she would forgive me for all of that." Ash then went to the next class.

Drew heads to Dawn's location.

"Hey Dawn, Ash wants to apologize to you, but he is afraid that you won't forgive him back," Drew said.

Dawn eyes immediately focus on Drew; a smile was beginning to form on her face.

"Really? I also feel like I should apologize to him too, I hope you are not lying Drew!" Dawn said.

"I am not, after all, I will always help my friends."


	4. Chapter 4: Good Friends

**The current class is cooking class.**

There are four groups, each consisting of four members.

Ash is in Dawn's group with two other students while Gary is in Misty's groups along with two other students, and Drew is in May's group with another two other students. The last group is the so called 'cool kids' who think they are going to beat everybody in the cooking class. The class is currently cooking brownies; it was a cooking contest.

Ash gave the ingredients to Dawn and decided not to make eye contact. Dawn added the ingredients to the mixture and started whisking. A student in the team has set up the sink and is cleaning utensils and other tools.

Ash was cutting the lettuce; the group had to prepare a salad as their assignment as well. Ash added seasoning, spices and colors onto the salad. Dawn finishes with the mixture, and a student poured it in into a greased pan and put it in the oven.

The group started filling the assignment sheet answering all the questions about preparation. A student had set up the placemats, utensils and flowers for the table. Dawn begins to stare at Ash until Ash looks around and sees her, she immediately turns away. Luckily, Ash couldn't make out what she was doing.

In Gary's group, they were asking questions about what ingredient should go in first.

"Just put in the damn cocoa beans already!" Gary said, frustrated.

Misty was busy in cleaning the utensils used to prepare the brownies. The other students were getting the rest of the ingredients and making the table; they were also drying the utensils.

May and her group was already finished with the preparations and started to bake the brownies.

The cool kids took forever and made an utterly messed up brownie.

Paul goes to Dawn and says a bunch of lies. "Dawn, Ash told me that you are a pathetic girl, he is never going to apologize to you, he hates you and does not want to see you and talk to you ever again," Paul said, with an evil smile on his face and then leaves to his group. Dawn was about to cry until May noticed the secret plan Paul was executing.

"Dawn! Don't believe Paul. He is doing this to make you hate Ash and like him! All that he said is not true! Trust me!" May is yelling as little as she can into Dawn's ear. Unfortunately, Dawn did not want to hear May and left the classroom. Right after she left, it was the end of the period.

Gary and Drew give the thumbs up for Ash to apologize to Dawn. Ash begins to approach Dawn slowly; he is shocked; he was seeing Dawn cry in front of his very own eyes, her depressed state made him feel like someone shot him in the stomach.

"Dawn, I am sorry for what I have done," Ash said, with a very guilty expression.

"Shut up Ash! I don't like you; Paul stated that you called me pathetic and a bunch of mean stuff!" Dawn cried, she began to cry even more.

Ash knew what Paul was up to. "What?! I never said a bunch of mean stuff! Paul is telling lies! He is doing that to make you hate me so you can date him!"

Dawn was shocked; she was about to run away until Ash held her arm.

"Dawn, I would never insult you like that, I wouldn't call you pathetic, I realized what I did to you was wrong, it was my fault for not finishing the work on time, I did not mean to call you unintelligent. I was stubborn, I was taken over by rage, I wasn't thinking correctly, I'm a loser, you are right, I'm just an idiot who- "

Dawn interrupts Ash. "I think I heard May telling me that Paul was telling lies about you hating me. I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. Ash, everything is forgiven. It was my fault too. I should not have screamed in class. I just had a rough day. I am very guilty." Dawn said, with a guilty expression on her face, about to cry again.

Ash hugs Dawn. "I'm glad you forgive me, we both were just wrong about our actions, the way we acted was completely pathetic," Ash said, nearly about to cry.

"It's alright Ash, best friends again?" Dawn raises her hand for a high-five. Ash happily high fives Dawn back.

Gary, Misty, May, and Drew are happy to see Ash and Dawn making up for what they did. Shortly the bell has rung, the group has finished their last class which was art.

 **The school day has ended,** the group, is talking outside of school. There was a lot of people outside, some with long conversations, a lot of them already had gone home.

Barry challenges Gary to a comeback battle. A group of people starts to gather up.

"Wow, they are having a comeback battle? I'm curious to see who will win." A random person said in the crowd.

"I hate comeback battles," May said.

"I like them a bit, but I don't want to participate in one," Drew said.

"Watch me destroy this guy's balls!" Gary shouted. The crowd cheered

It was Gary's turn to say a comeback. "You are a failed abortion attempt," Gary said. Everyone in the crowd yelling "OHHHHHHHHHH!" Barry's time to shine.

"Oh, so a thought crossed your mind must have been a long and lonely journey!" Barry shouted. The crowd yells and it was louder than Gary's. It was Gary's turn.

"You better hide, the garbage collector is coming boy! You deserve to live in a trash can." THE CROWD YELLING THREE TIMES LOUDER THAN BARRY'S. Unfortunately, Barry forfeit and Gary won the comeback battle.

"Congratulations Gary!" Misty hugs him. Gary blushed a bit.

"Thanks! Man, that guy was easy." The group chuckled.

The group began to talk about school subjects.

"Science class was boring today," Dawn said.

"Well that's because we are learning something new Dawn, maybe it will be a fun subject, give it some patience," Ash replied.

"I hated every class," Gary said, annoyed.

"May, what class do you like?" Drew asked.

"Uh, well. I like ELA best." May responded.

"And I like social studies!" Misty butted in.

"I wonder what was up with Paul today, he said complete lies to Dawn, just to make her mad at me," Ash said, with a confused expression.

"Just don't talk about that Ash, the band class was fun today, though!" Dawn said, wanting to change the topic.

"Did I forgot to mention that there is a math test coming soon?" Drew said, with an evil smile. The entire group whined about the math test.

"Math was fun, I helped May with some struggles in math," Drew says, looking at May having a small blush on her cheeks.

"It was nothing; I'm grateful, though," May replied.

"The basketball finals are tomorrow boys! I'm SO pumped up. I can't wait. We are going to kick butts' tomorrow!" Gary shouted, excited for tomorrow.

"I'm ready too!" Ash said, excited too for the basketball finals.

"If we lose, I'm going to quit the team!" Drew said.

"HA, LOSE? Like we are ever going to lose." Gary said, feeling tight.

"Hey, guys!" Drew said. "How about you all come to my house at 5:00 PM after basketball practice is over?" They all agreed. The boys had basketball practice after school.

 **Basketball Practice**

"What is up boys!" Gary said, excited for practice.

"Everything is going good," Said a light ash.

"Let's get practicing already," Drew said.

The basketball team does their daily routine, player vs. player, shooting hoops, learning different formations and playing a scrimmage at the end.

"Alright, boys, same teams as before! Ash you ready to lose again? Best of 20 to win, four vs. four!" Gary said, with a smirk on his face.

"Not this time!" Ash said, with hope and spirit.

The game begins, Ash gets the tip off sending it to an open teammate. Teammate 3 passes to teammate 4, and teammate 4 gets the lay up in. Gary now has the ball and passes it to Drew. He shoots a three-pointer but missed. Opposing teammate 2 gets the rebound and passes to Gary. He then dribbles to the basket and his ball gets stolen by teammate 4. He then passes to Ash, he shoots a three-pointer and gets it in! The score is now 5-0.

Drew passes to opposing teammate 2, he shoots but then gets blocked by teammate 3. He is wide open and is dribbling to the basket, he sees someone behind him and passes to Ash in mid-air and slams it in the basket. 7-0.

Drew receives the ball and does a half-court shot. He somehow gets it in. 7-3. Ash is watching in disbelief, probably wondering how he got a crazy basket. After minutes of the scrimmage, the score is 18-3. Ash's team is in a huge lead now, looks like they improved quite a lot.

Ash gets the ball, avoids Gary from stealing his ball and ends the game with a score of 20-3. Ash's team wins.

"Damn, Ash. Your skills have gotten pretty good now! I'm feeling confident we are going to win the basketball championships." Gary said, amazed by his skills.

"Yep, we are probably the best team," Ash said.

 **At May's house.**

"Hey, girls, do you want to buy some different casual clothes today? How about we surprise the boys?" May said, smirking. Dawn and Misty nodded. The girls are at the store to buy different clothes for the hangout at Gary's house while they were busy in basketball practice. The girls were browsing through each piece of clothing. Eventually, they found their match; they are satisfied with their dress.

Dawn has brought a dark blue skirt, a white t-shirt and dark blue fashion shoes. Total amount: $63.00

May has brought green shorts with a square pattern and a dark green long sleeve shirt. Total amount: $52.00

Misty has brought an orange sweater and black jeans. Total amount: $48.00

The girls wear the new clothes they bought and began heading to Gary's house.

The boys arrive at Gary's house. They have 21 minutes before the girls come. They each took a quick shower because of the sweat from basketball. They took out long shirts. Ash is wearing a red shirt; Drew is wearing a light-blue shirt. Gary is wearing a black shirt with a tie with on his.

 **Gary's House**

"I wonder if the girls are going to be wearing different clothes when they come to my house," Gary asked.

"I don't know. We will have to wait and see," Drew said. Ash nodded in agreement.

They are ready for the girls.


	5. Chapter 5: Good Hangout

**The doorbell rings,** Ash, and Drew are seated in the comfy black sofa. Gary gets up to open the door. To his surprise, he sees three beautiful girls dressed up in formal dress. He liked Misty out of all of them.

"Hello, girls! What is up with the new clothes today?" Gary complimented.

"Hello!" All the girls said. "We insisted on buying new clothes; we were in need of change that's why," May said, and the girls entered Gary's house.

All the boys are stunned by their beauty. Ash whispers to Drew's ear.

"This is my first time seeing hot girls. Those clothes surely match them," Ash whispered.

"Well this isn't my first time seeing hot girls, they are just girls," Drew whispered back.

"Hello, Dawn! Hello, girls. You all look exquisite today." Ash said, quite stunned on how gorgeous they look with those clothes.

"Thanks, Ash!" The girls thanked Ash. Dawn was blushing.

"May, you are looking like a beautiful flower today, same to all of you girls!" May blushed, the other girls are flattered and thanked Drew.

"You guys look sharp!" All the girls replied back, making all the boys blush.

"What do you guys want to do?" Gary asked.

"I don't know, whatever you like," Dawn replied.

"Let's eat some snacks first and then watch a movie, after that; we decide one more thing we should do. How does that sound?" Gary asked once again.

"Sure," All the girls nodded in agreement.

Everybody goes upstairs to Gary's huge room. Gary goes down to get some snacks such as some chocolate bars, candy, and drinks. Everyone thanked Gary for bringing the snacks.

Everybody sits on the floor; Dawn is beside Ash, Misty beside Gary and May Beside Drew.

"Guys, do you want to watch a horror movie?" Gary asked.

"NO! I'm afraid of horror movies!" Dawn said, worried.

"I don't mind," Ash said.

"I LOVE HORROR MOVIES!" Misty shouted.

"Jeez, that yell was unnecessary," Gary said, annoyed.

"Sorry," Misty said, with her tongue sticking out.

"Sure," May said.

"I like horror movies, let's watch it," Drew said.

Gary inserts the disc containing the horror movie into the DVD. It loads up on the TV screen, and he selects play from the start button. Gary turns off the lights for the full movie experience; he also had prepared popcorn by the time.

Two minutes into the movie and Misty is already scared.

"Gary, I'm so damn scared!" Misty says, grabbing a pillow and hiding her face in it. Gary laughs.

A deafening sudden jump scare in the movie scares the bejesus out of everybody. The group jumped in fear and fell onto Gary's bed, some of the girls left the room.

"YEP, THAT'S IT. NO MORE HORROR MOVIES," Dawn yelled.

"Screw this crap, way too scary." Gary looks at the video file. "Ohhh, I see now. It is for adults." Gary said, laughing. Gary was about to turn off the TV until he gets rebelled by some people.

"NO! Don't turn it off; I'm enjoying this," Ash said, smiling the entire movie.

"Yea man, people, are enjoying the movie here, don't ruin the experience Gary," Drew said, with a mad expression. Gary decided not to turn off the TV and continue watching the movie. Everybody is now calm and went back to where their spots were. The room was so dark; nobody has spotted Dawn tightly hugging Ash.

I can tell that is Dawn hugging me. She looks cute when she does that, Ash in his thoughts smiling.

May is tightly holding Drew's hand. Drew's hand was seating; his insides were heating up too. He is trying so hard not to stop holding May's hand. If he lets go, he feels like May will fall from a 100-meter tower when Drew was holding her hand to get her up onto the surface.

Misty was sleeping on Gary's lap; she didn't found the movie scary anymore. Gary was smiling at her cute sleepy face.

The movie was almost over, all of the boys were trying to act tough, they felt like they were the heroes and showed no fear when scared, the boys could disappoint the girls if they become scared. So the boys had to do the bravery and had to withstand the scary scenes in the movie, with their mind always thinking: "I will never be afraid."

The movie was finally over. Gary turned on the lights. He was instantly smirking; he saw May holding Drew's hand, and Dawn buried in Ash's chest, not wanting to watch the movie.

"Hey, lovebirds! Nice romantic pose," Gary shouted, which immediately caused everyone to repel from each other.

"You saw nothing, Gary!" Dawn yelled.

"Same here!" May yelled along with Dawn.

"Alright," Gary said, smirking.

"How about we go shopping?" Dawn said. She surely loves to shop.

"Yea!" All the girls agreed.

"BOOOO!" All the boys did not want to go.

"Come on please!" All the girls said, were their cute pleasing faces.

"Fine, girls these days," Gary said, surrendering. The boys nodded, bored.

The group went walking to the mall.

"Girls, we should check out the new dresses that are made by Cynthia!" Dawn said, all the girls squealed.

"Ugh, girls," Drew said, in an indifferent mood. Ash looked like he was going to collapse, same with Gary.

"What, guys? Don't like shopping? May said.

"We do like shopping, but with girls it's going to take forever," Gary said, in a bored tone.

"You will like it!" Misty said.

"I shouldn't have signed up for this," Ash said in the lowest tone as possible, so the girls don't hear him.

The group has reached the mall. The girls were already browsing through the dresses; the boys sat there bored waiting for the girls to finish what they are doing.

The young men found something to do, when they went to the toys section, they found toy guns and bought them, they pretended to have a shootout in the mall. Ash throws himself into boxes of toys and uses them as cover while pretending to shoot at Gary. While Gary, plays dead by a shot from Ash and caused him to fall purposely into a shelf full of cereal, making an entire mess in the mall. Drew accidently slips and knocks four bottles of milk which litter the entire mall floor. He is still pretending to shoot at Ash. Finally, Ash fake plays a shot from Drew, and he throws himself purposely into someone, and it's not a happy person. It was Dawn.

"ASH!" Dawn yells, making all the boys shiver. Misty and May are glaring at the boys.

"WHAT THE HELL GARY! Look at the mess you made!" Misty points at the milk littered on the floor, cereal boxes scattered over, some of them were opened, and corn fell out, she also spotted them having toy guns.

"Drew, what is wrong with you? Ugh, we shouldn't have thought going the mall with you guys," A crowd of people was looking at the mess, and the girls were furious.

"You know what, I'm done with you pathetic childish idiots, can't stand 10 minutes of your life in the mall," Dawn throws a bag of cereal at Ash.

"And you Drew, I never expected you to be such a dumb, sick minded and a disastrous person." May storms out of the mall, yelling at everyone to get the hell out of the way.

Misty kicks Gary in the chest and storms off. Before authorities came, they are afraid that they had to pay for the damage and mess that is caused, luckily the boys were covered in a complete mess nobody couldn't even recognize them, and they instantly ran off, closing any view from anyone. They locked themselves in Gary's house. They changed clothes and Gary put them in the dishwasher, they are wearing their casual clothes. Hopefully, they won't be recognized by the audience at the mall.

"That went pretty harsh," Gary said, depressed. This is the first time Ash and Drew seen Gary depressed.

"Christ." That's all Ash can say.

"Well, it's just some milk spilled on the floor and a few cereal boxes falling over, it can be cleaned in one minute. Jesus, what is up with these girls," Drew said, somewhat angered.

"Crap, I just wish we didn't go to the mall. None of this could have happened." Ash said.

"God damn it!" Drew said, hitting the wall with his fist.

"The insults from these girls were pretty devastating," Ash said.

"What is up with them and with their shopping?!" Gary said, finally going into his angry state.

"They took so god damn long, we were going to die just by sitting there," Ash said.

"This is the worst day ever, now what are we going to do?" Drew asked.

"You know what we will do? Don't show any mercy to them, don't talk to them, don't help them and stay away from them. I don't even want to apologize to them," Gary said.

"Typical girls upset over a little mess," Drew said.

Ash said with his head down. "We shouldn't have started this so called shootout in the first place."

"What? Are you going to surrender to them? What we did is not even childish, it was some adult crap we were doing since we were so god damn bored." Drew said, angered.

Gary looks at the time, and he sees it is 7:48 PM.

"You all should go home now, just get ready for tomorrow." Ash and Drew left to go to their house.

 **Ash enters his home to be greeted by Delia.**

"Hello dear, how was school?" Ash completely ignored the question and went upstairs and locked his door.

Delia knocks on the door; "Dear, are you alright did something happen?" She gets no response. "I will leave you alone, you seem pretty mad, something must of have happened today." Ash could hear the footsteps of her walking downstairs.

Drew arrived at his house and instantly fell in bed. On the same case as Ash, ignoring his mom and not responding back.

 **Meanwhile with the girls.**

"What was up with these idiots today?!" Dawn said, in a loud, angry tone.

"Yea, they were so disrespectful I wish I killed them!" Misty said, pissed off.

"Girls, don't even talk to them, if they apologize, don't accept their apology," May said.

The girls went to their houses.

"Hello Dawn, how was your day at school?" Johanna curiously asked.

"Fine," Dawn said, the voice sounded dead and angry.

"Are you sure? Tell me about it, Dawn, you don't seem happy today."

"That's because a group of idiotic boys made a mess in the mall while we were shopping for new dresses!" Dawn stormed to her room. Johanna did not want to bother Dawn when she was angry; she would usually wait till she is calm tomorrow.

 **Misty arrived home** ; her mom was already sleeping, so she went into her room and slammed the door loudly, and slept.

 **May arrived home**. Her little brother Max greets her.

"Hey, May. How did school go? Do you like an- "Max was interrupted by May.

"SHUT THE HELL UP, DON'T EVEN TALK ABOUT THIS DAY." May stormed off into her room. Max was left shivering; he soon headed to his room.

 **Meanwhile with Ash.**

Ash's dream: He was at school with Dawn, the time is 3:35 PM. Ash saw Dawn staring at him.

"Ash, do you know what happened at the mall?" Ash can recall what happened at the mall, at this point he was going to burst out in anger at Dawn.

"You know Ash, what you did was wrong; I don't like to be with a wild boy like you," Ash was about to yell at Dawn until he saw Paul coming by and holding her hand.

"For your information Ash, I'm dating Paul, I love him so much because he is disciplined, smart, much more mature than you, he isn't a child like you, I deserve him not a reckless idiot like you." Finally, Ash started yelling.

"Fine, Dawn. You want to be like that? Fine. You quickly get pissed over a small mess, I didn't even like you in the first place, I don't want a girl with anger issues. You looked like a dumbass in that dress Dawn; it almost made me vomit." At this point, Dawn was beginning to cry. Paul was about to say something, but Ash's anger out powered him.

"You are a girl who spends too much time on makeup and still looks ugly when finished! I don't even want to talk, you piece of crap." Ash finished, unloading his anger on Dawn, which caused Dawn to cry much harder.

Good, she apparently lost against my wall of insults. Ash in his thoughts, smiling.

The dream has ended. Ash was unsatisfied because it was a dream, he only wished to insult Dawn back.

* * *

 **WHAT A CHAPTER! Devastating insults and conflict! What will happen tomorrow? Read the next chapter to find out!**


	6. Chapter 6: Mobilization

**It is currently the morning of a new day. It was the basketball championships today; there is basketball practice early morning.**

Ash wakes up from his bed due to the alarm clock; he hits it which causes the clock to fall off the counter and break on the floor. Ash gets up from bed, energetic and still angry about what happened yesterday. He wears his casual clothes and heads downstairs. He finishes eating breakfast almost instantly; he was about to head out until he got stopped by his mom.

"Dear, do you want to explain to me what happened yesterday?" Delia asked. Finally, Ash replied back.

"Fine, it was because we were so bored waiting for the girls to finish which was Dawn, May, and Misty, so we decided to have an imaginary shootout which resulted in a small mess, and they easily got pissed off over it," Ash said, in an angry tone, he left the house slamming the door hard.

"Sigh, it must have been something critical then," Delia in her thoughts.

Same situation with Gary, the only difference is that he did not talk to his mom at all and headed to school.

 **Drew's house**

Drew has woken up by himself, already got dressed up in his casual clothes, school supplies prepared, notes read, the only thing he had to do is eat breakfast. He headed downstairs and began to eat breakfast very slowly. He finally finished after 20 minutes.

"Dear, do you care to talk to me about what happened yesterday?" His mom said, worried.

"Not yet, but I will give you some information. It was just a group of girls consisting of Dawn, May, and Misty which easily got mad over a small mess, you can say they are girls with anger issues." Drew said, and left the house with the door open.

 **Dawn's house**

Dawn woke up by the alarm clock; she slowly gets up from bed. Dawn gets her casual clothes and wears them, she begins to do her hair, puts on her hairclips and her scarf. The bluenette packs up her bag with school supplies and heads downstairs to finish breakfast. Johanna decides not to speak with Dawn since she is very silent.

Dawn finishes eating breakfast she then heads out to school without saying bye to her mom.

 **The same situation occurred with May and Misty.**

The boys are shocked when they see Dawn, May, and Misty waiting for the bus first. Usually, they would be the last people to reach the bus stop. The girls spot the boys and instantly give them a disgusted look.

Ash fired back by shaking his head and facepalming. Gary spits on the ground. Drew crossed his arms and glared at the girls. Something unexpected happens, Dawn, May, and Misty begin to laugh.

"Why are you laughing, you queers?" Drew said, confused.

"We are just laughing at your pathetic actions," May replied back, still laughing.

Gary whispers in Drew's ear. "They are just girls, trying to cover up their anger inside." Drew and Gary chuckle. Which somehow made the girls laugh more.

Ash then whispered to Gary and Drew, "I think this is their plan; they will laugh for no reason and get us mad. Just like before, don't talk to them, don't take any baits, just reply with expressions," Drew and Gary nodded.

In fact, the girls were laughing because they were already mad at the start when they arrived at the bus stop. Dawn opened her mouth like she was going to say something until the bus pulled up and opened the door. She didn't had time to talk. Ash smirked.

The group gets on the bus, completely silent and not even looking at each other. They reached the school and got off the bus. The boys instantly headed to the gymnasium because of early basketball practice.

There were Barry, Kenny, and other basketball players waiting. The coach who is Mr. Norman is about to start teaching formations.

"Alright team, we are going to be practicing all offensive formations. The overload, single stack, double stack, mid-screen and horns formations.

After 35 minutes of practicing formations, the team had 15 minutes of scrimmage. Ash, Gary, and Drew were on the same team. They are against Barry, Kenny, and Buck.

Ash, as usual, the tallest one will do the tip off. The scrimmage begins, Ash receives the tip off and starts dribbling. They set up the horns formation. The defense has too much pressure, Ash does a fake dribble and passes to Gary, who was wide open at the side end of the court. He jumps and shoots the ball. It lands inside the net, counting as a three-pointer. Score: 3-0

Barry attempts to dribble to cross over Ash; he is so selfish that he forgot a teammate was setting a screen for him. Gary rushes and steals Barry's ball and starts heading straight for the basket resulting in an instant layup of two points. Score: 5-0

Kenny has the ball, this time, he dribbles up to half court and passes to Buck. He begins to drive, and his speed was fast that he crossed over Gary and was going to do a slam dunk until Drew who reacted quickly blocked his ball and sent it flying to Ash.

Ash begins to dribble. Kenny attempts to stop him but fails; the other two defenders collapse on him; he passes to the wide open Drew and shoots inside the three-pointer line. Score: 7-0

After 10 minutes of scrimmage, the score is 31-0. Barry's team was devastated, they were out skilled and outsmarted.

 **Basketball practice was over.**

Dawn, May, and Misty were at their lockers getting their school supplies. They had to fight through the crowd, Dawn got shoved into a wall and suffered pain.

"What the hell?" Dawn said, in pain.

Misty helps Dawn up. "That was Paul, with his cold behavior as usual." Misty sighs.

 **The bell rings, signaling the next class, which was science.**

Everybody has taken a seat. Jessie and James were whining about how boring the class will be. Unfortunately, they were sent to detention by the teacher.

Ash looks at Dawn; she immediately rolls her eyes to the other side in disgust. Ash was angered by her action but decided to control himself. Gary and Misty is seated next to each other; their chairs are far apart from the table. Drew looks at May; he instantly covers his mouth like he was going to puke. May threw a pencil at him; Drew caught it. May shot up from her chair.

"Teacher! Drew is not giving my pencil back," May yelled.

"Drew, give her writing utensil back, or you go to detention just like Jessie and James," He said, impatiently.

"As you see here Mr. Oak, she gave me a pencil and instantly blames me for it, that is trickery and mischief right there. Mr. Oak, she is wasting our time and your class time," Drew said, annoyed and threw the pencil into her desk.

"I don't want to start a big fuss over that you both are saying that truth or not, you both will go to detention if this pursues again," Mr. Oak said.

The class started to do their assignment on atomic structure. There was barely any talking at all. Dawn was busy in her thoughts.

"Why am I feeling so guilty about this?! I know it was a small mess and that, but I feel like I have been disrespected heavily by Ash," Dawn begins to think of a scenario as if they were a couple. "Pfft, Ash and me as a couple? Like that is ever going to happen," She shakes her head. "But why do I feel as if my stomach got some sort of flies flying around in it?" Dawn looks at Ash. "Maybe I do like him? He looks very cute, and he is a brave and kind-hearted person to be with," Dawn snaps out of her mind when she spots Ash looking at her.

"Why are you staring at me?" Ash asked.

"I was staring at the window jeez, I'm already finished with this assignment," Dawn said, rolling her eyes once again. "I haven't even finished my task, dang it!" She murmured to herself.

Drew and May were on their phones and was caught by the teacher. Both of you, go up to the front, it will be much easier for me to supervise you at the front because right now you are acting like little children. You are in grade ten. Is this the kind of behavior you show to me?" They both shook their head. The teacher took their phone and put them in the bucket.

May and Drew were forced to sit together. Not even saying a single word to each other. Somehow they were both sweating, and they were both trying to work on the assignment until Drew had something to say.

"I have to tell you something M- "Drew is interrupted by May.

"No need, I have something much more important to say to you, I'm very sorry, I overreacted yesterday, I know it was just a small mess. Sigh, I'm sorry." May apologized, Drew's eyes widened too.

"I am sorry too, May, I guess I was too tired and became impatient, the only way I got rid of my impatience was pretending a game of shooting," Drew apologized, with his head down. May holds Drew's hand. Redness on Drew's cheeks begins to form. May had his hand on top of Drew's left hand. This was a great moment for Drew. They both were blushing the entire time. They decided to keep their makeup secret.

 **The bell rings, signaling the next class which was the band class. And this time, Ash has to attend the class.**

Everyone enters the room, they follow instructions, setting up instruments and awaiting what the teacher will assign for the class. Ash plays the trumpet, Gary plays the tuba, and Drew plays the trombone. Ash, Gary, and Drew are not very skilled with musical instruments, but they knew they can't embarrass themselves, not today, not at this time.

Professor Birch tells the class to play 'Kenya Contrasts' music sheet.

The class begins to play 'Kenya Contrasts' written by William Himes. The music is sounding perfect. All notes are played correctly, correct volume, slurs, and timing. Only something is missing; a trumpet part was supposed to be played on bar three of the music sheet. Each time there is a mistake in the music, the class stops to fix the error.

Professor Birch only has Ash to play that part as a trumpet. He then tells Ash to play his part, Ash plays his quick part, resulting in some misplayed notes and bad timing. Some of the class chuckle. Gary and Drew support him, so he doesn't feel bad. Ash felt appalling, and he felt like he wanted to kill himself.

The bell rings, it was the next class which is Math. There is 10 minute free-time first.

Misty went to Gary's locker. Gary was prepared for the worst, a sudden turn of events occurs.

"Gary, I'm very sorry about what happened yesterday. I was very pissed off because I thought you didn't like the clothes we choose and you decided to play a stupid game creating a small mess," Misty's apology was short, but Gary accepted it.

"You know, there is always a second chance, I feel like I disrespected you when I played that game with my friends, I'm sorry as well. Can we go back to being best friends right? Let's not have any more arguments or fights," Gary said, Misty nodded and hugged him. May came to them.

"Did you guys just apologize to each other? Drew and I did," May said, surprised.

"Yeah, we did," Gary said Misty nodded in agreement.

"Well, all that is left is Ash and Dawn then," Misty said.

"I wonder about that," Drew said. "Huh?" The group turned towards Drew. "What do you mean by that?" Gary asked.

"Recently, it seems like their hatred is growing bigger and bigger, I'm afraid that this will become real ugly for them," The group appears to worry, but then the bell has rung. The start of math class.


	7. Chapter 7: Severe Issues

**Current class: Math.**

Everyone has received a math assignment; it had the following questions:

Solve the following issues:

3x 6

5b 4b + 3

9b – 23 13b + 23

And so on.

This is Ash and Dawn's nightmare; they are both seated next to each other. Ash seems like he knows this stuff and is writing down the answers fast while Dawn is writing the answers slowly.

Dawn gets frustrated over Ash's annoying sounds when he writes too rapid. "Can you stop writing too quickly? You might screw up on a question if you write that fast," Dawn said, annoyed.

"I don't need your advice," Ash said, he seems to slow down his writing just a bit.

"Excuse me, idiot; you need help because you suck at math," Dawn said, the class heard Dawn. The class got fired up and "Ohhhhh! Burned!" were heard all over. The math teacher heard nothing because he was busy arriving with more work.

"Oh I'm sorry, says the one that failed the math test and got 50% overall in the math course, piece of shit," Ash shouted.

Now the class was getting intense, May, Drew, Gary, and Misty watched in disbelief. Everyone was bursting out yelling. Everybody went silent right after the teacher opened the door. She sat at her desk filling out sheets like nothing happened.

Ash and Dawn are fuming. They look like they will shatter at any given moment. Everyone proceeded with their work and had finished. Some were too lazy to finish the work.

The teacher was teaching the next lesson of linear inequalities.

"Class, we are going to introduce number scales or lines, whichever way you want to call it. We will also be doing linear inequalities with fractions too," Ms. Juniper said, finishing with a smile on her face. The entire class moaned and wailed like zombies when she said that.

This was going to be a very long math class, Ash thought. They received the new math assignment. Everybody was allowed to talk as long as they can work together, Ash and Dawn coincidently moved to reunite with their friends from their desk. Ash is with Misty and May and Dawn with Gary and Drew.

"If you guys are going to bother me, don't do it. It is going to end very badly if you do," Ash said, with a dangerous serious tone. May and Misty said nothing but work.

"What? Is there a problem with a girl sitting beside two boys?" Dawn said, in a pissed off tone. Gary and Drew shook their heads.

 **The bell has rung; an hour of math comes to an end.**

The last class for lunch is ELA. This is the class where Ash and Dawn had an argument, so it pretty much is a civil war. The social studies class was doing research at the lab; the teacher was handling a group of lazy people in her classroom.

Ash, Dawn, and Gary sat at their table. Gary was the first to speak.

"Hey guys, cheer up a bit. At least we finished the second part of the assignment," Gary said, hoping to make them a bit happy. He got no response back. Ash and Dawn were too busy working on their parts, they are so unstable that if just one person tries to merge them together, they will repel like two magnets, except worse than that, they are like two atoms, water, and potassium. If they interact with each other, they will cause an explosive chemical reaction.

 **In May's group.**

"Guys, Gary's team is dead silent over there," Misty pointed to Gary's group, especially at Ash and Dawn.

"I know right? They were like that for the entire day, and it is scaring the hell out of me now," May said, worried about Dawn and Ash.

"We can't do anything, I'm afraid we will cause a fight between them both, it is best if we stay back and prevent them from intermingling each other in a harsh way," Drew said.

Ash's paper accidently caught the wind and flew onto Dawn's. She instantly pushed Ash and he fell off his chair and hit the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" Ash yelled.

"Then why is your paper on my paper?" Dawn said, enraged.

"The wind caught it and flew to yours, you sure do have anger issues," Ash said, pissed off by the bluenette.

Gary had to do something; he intervened and prevented the argument from escalating

"STOP, BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP; WE WILL LOSE MARKS IF YOU CONTINUE TO FIGHT!" Gary slammed the table and shouted at both of them.

Ash and Dawn's eyes widened in shock, they both stopped fighting. It looks like Gary hurt them emotionally.

 **Finally, the class was over, and it was lunch. People went to put away their supplies and bring out their lunch bags at their lockers. The other few brought their lunch at the cafeteria.**

Ash sat at an empty table, and Dawn sat at another empty table while Ash and Dawn's friends were sitting in one table.

"Look at them," May said, pointing at Ash and Dawn.

"They are separated from each other, I told you this would get worse," Drew said, sighing.

"They hate each other that much, you are right Drew. We can't do anything about it." Gary said, hopelessly.

Kenny went over to Dawn's table and made the stupidest mistake ever; his lunch tray falls on Dawn.

"I'm so sorr-" Kenny was cut off by Dawn's yell that caused him to receive a cold shiver down his spine which froze poor Kenny like ice and got shattered after Dawn stood over him like a tsunami.

"WHAT THE HELL!" She slapped Kenny across the face. EVERYONE in the room had their eyes widened in shock. Kenny went running to the office. Three teachers went running to the scene, and Dawn by an order is heading straight to the reception. The teachers were trying their hardest to keep everybody calm and not start a big talk about the fight.

A lot of people are all looking around, asking questions.

"I told you this would get worse," Paul came to the table Drew was sitting.

"Now what do you want, punk?" Gary said, annoyed.

"I'm warning you that the more time she spends with the fuel; you know what I mean; Ash. She will burn much more brightly and violently.

"We don't need your false theories," Said Drew.

"Fine, then. You guys are a waste of time," Paul left.

Gary went over to Ash's location.

"Yo, man. The basketball championships are right after lunch! Are you pumped?" Ash nodded very slowly.

"Come on man, you are our spirit, if you are depressed like that in a court of basketball, you won't be able to win a game!" Gary said, then left off to his table.

Everyone began to eat, Gary had military food to build his muscles, Drew had some spaghetti, yogurt, juice, and an apple. Misty had a cucumber, salad and rice with chopped turkey. May had cookies, yogurt and vegetables with rice. Ash had a burger, chocolate chip cookies, yogurt, and veggies. Ash was eating very slowly; the others were eating at a usual speed.

Dawn was released from the office 10 minutes later; she was lucky not to be suspended.

She ate her lunch fast because lunchtime was almost over.

The group sighed in relief that Dawn did not receive a suspension. They are still worried about her on many levels still.

Lunch time was over; the gym was being set up for the basketball championships which is about to start in 30 minutes. The team is getting prepared to practice in 15 minutes.

Drew and Gary went to Dawn to sort some things out with her.

"Dawn, are you still angry at Ash?" Gary asked. Dawn nodded.

"Can you tell us why?" Drew asked. Dawn refused.

Ash spots Drew and Gary talking to Dawn. Ash now goes deep into his thoughts.

"What can they be possibly talking about? I hope it's not about Dawn and me. This entire day, all we did was fought, fought, yell at each other and accomplish nothing except more conflict and anger. I wish I left this school; I didn't want to live through this mess, especially if it was a girl I liked."

Now Dawn in her thoughts.

"I should stop, I realized that I'm in love with Ash, why am I fighting with him then? All I know what set us off was the incident at the mall yesterday, I should have promised to him that we should never fight again, May, Drew, Gary and Misty all made up. Ash and I haven't even made up yet; we aren't even close. I should have stayed at home, ugh. Now I'm stuck in a hole that I cannot get out of."

"Dawn?" Gary said

She instantly snapped out of her thoughts.

"What? Just stop talking about it please," Dawn stormed off.

"Well, looks like she is far from giving in," Drew said.

"Agreed,"

Gary and Drew head to May and Misty

"May and Misty, your turn, try to change her," Gary said. They nodded.

"Dawn!" Misty shouted, Dawn immediately stopped.

"Now what do you want?!" Dawn said, getting angry.

"Can you please tell us, why you hate Ash? We are girls, you can tell us anything," May said.

"No, why? Don't you see that he is pissing me off more than I have expected? Why do you guys even want to know when the truth is right in front of your eyes?" Dawn replied, getting enraged further.

"Look, you shouldn't be mad for a small mess at the mall, but considering the number of times you both fought in class today, it was because of the incident at the mall, I think there are other reasons why you are tremendously mad at him," Misty said.

"What kind of ideas? The only reason you see right now is the mall incident. I don't want to talk about this please!" Dawn is about to run off until she May stops Dawn in her tracks.

"Dawn, this chaos will only get worse, not only your marks will be affected, your study time, your reputation and you will probably get suspended!" May said, worriedly.

"I'm sure the only one going that will face suspension is him, plus I'm going to watch the basketball game, I find it as a way to cool off because there are too many idiots wondering around the hallways, talking a lot; it annoys me. Plus, some of them come up to me and say what that slap to Kenny was about," Dawn said, on the verge of bursting.

"Okay fine, you can leave now Dawn," May said. Dawn moved to the gym.

"I think we have enough evidence," Misty said.

"Dawn is pissed at Ash about the mall incident, another reason why she is mad has to deal with the fact that they fought over things in classes. I wonder why their argument escalated to such high levels?" May said.

"Gary and I apologized smoothly, just like you and Drew, May. Why haven't they apologized yet after the mall incident, this war between Ash and Dawn seems unstoppable, let's just watch the basketball game," Misty said. May nodded.

Misty and May headed off to the gym.


	8. Chapter 8: Basketball Championships

**The opposing team members labels are SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and SP5. (I was too lazy to get names for them, sorry about that *chuckle*)**

* * *

Ash's team is the Jefferson Knights; the opposing team is the Saint Paul Strikers.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Said the announcer, excited for today's championships in basketball.

Spectators came all around the country, from different schools and neighborhoods. Dawn takes a seat on the bleachers with May and Misty. The gymnasium was almost full, nearly all of the spots in the bleachers are under occupation. The basketball match is immense today.

"RIGHT HERE, ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE COURT, WE HAVE THE JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!" The spectators started cheering like crazy. Ash felt the intense pressure of the audience. He never expected the gymnasium to be this full of people.

"ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE COURT, WE HAVE THE SAINT PAUL STRIKERS!" The audience roared, the gym already felt intense even when the basketball game has not started yet. Ash is now determined to win the championships.

"All rules of basketball apply, there are four quarters, 10 minutes each!"

The practice timer is set to 15 minutes. Both teams start practicing formations.

"Ash, we better not lose this," Gary said.

"I hope we don't," Ash replied

"We are confident we will win this," Drew said.

The Jefferson Knights had Ash, Gary, Drew, Barry, and Buck.

They started practicing three-pointers, inside shots, slam dunks which made the audience roar like crazy each time they do a slam dunk.

Ash decided to show off his skills by doing a two-handed slam dunk and then holding the net. The audience cheered for him. He can hear his name mentioned a lot of times by the public; he felt some encouragement.

The team started practicing two vs. three scenario's, quick set up plays and passing drills.

The other team was doing shots and layups, Gary was trash talking about the Saint Paul Strikers the whole time, he could easily get a technical foul for trash talking.

"Pfft, look at them, they barely have any tall guys; we got this right on the hook buddy!" Gary said, hitting Ash softly on the back.

 **Practice time was over.** Both teams were ready in position. Ash was sent to do the tip off, but still felt depressed after yesterday, he decided to look at the audience and then to his surprise, he spotted Dawn. Since he was distracted by Dawn, he instantly looks back, and the tip-off has already started, Ash attempts to get the tip off, but SP1 knocked the ball into one of his teammates.

Ash felt embarrassed and stupid for looking at Dawn at a horrible time.

The Jefferson Knights are in defensive formation, Ash was covering SP1, Gary was covering SP3, Barry; SP4, Drew; SP2 and Buck; SP5.

To Ash's surprise, SP1 starts dribbling, and his speed was incredibly fast that he crossed over Ash and scored a SLAM DUNK. The audience roared. Score: 2-0.

Crap, Ash thought. I got to FOCUS on the game. Ash shakes his body.

Ash receives the ball by Gary and starts dribbling. Already fronted with defensive pressure, Ash is tightly covered by SP1, he was struggling to cross over this guy. So he decided to pass to Barry, he shoots the inside three-point shot and barely lands it in. The audience cheered. Score: 2-2

SP2 starts dribbling up to the basket; Drew is covering him, preventing him from getting closer to the basket. SP2 passes to SP5, but the pass got denied by Buck and gave to it to Gary.

Gary started to dribble towards the basket, crosses over SP4 and does a slam dunk. The audience roared. Score: 4-2.

"Wow, this game is pretty intense and somewhat fun to watch!" Misty squealed.

"I'm so anxious to see who will win this game!" May shouted.

"Yeah and I'm not interested," Dawn said, in a very low sad tone, barely heard.

May and Misty had a worried expression on their face; they decided to let it go and kept watching the game.

 **Period 1 in the basketball game has passed. The score is 31-28.**

SP5 has begun dribbling towards the basket; he commits a foul by charging towards Ash. The referee gave the ball to Ash, and then he passed it to Drew.

Drew was running fast and direct towards the basket, he does a fake play and passes to Ash, he dribbles inside the key and passes to Barry, he dribbles outside of the key and passes to Gary, he couldn't shoot because he was covered, he passed behind him the wide-open Drew and he shoots a three-pointer and missed. The team encouraged him that it is fine.

SP2 passes to SP4, then he passes to SP5, Buck failed to intercept the pass leaving SP5 wide open for a three-point shot which he takes, and lands in perfectly. The score is 31-31.

Ash's team is feeling the real pressure now, they are sweating like crazy, they couldn't afford to lose this game.

Barry receives the ball, then passes to the point guard which is Ash. He starts to dribble up to half court and hands over the ball to Buck. He decides to pass to Gary, immediately crossing over SP2 and doing a layup. Score: 33-31.

The audience is going crazy from all sides; they were extremely interested in this huge match.

SP3 passes to SP1; he immediately starts dribbling fast and furiously to the basket. Ash was ready; SP1 was about to cross him over until Ash touched his ball and caught it. He starts to dribble wide openly to the net and then does a SLAM DUNK. Score: 35-31

SP4 passes to SP1, he passes to SP3, which he jumps and shoots but then gets fouled by Gary hitting him on the arm. SP3 gets two free-throws.

Both teams line up, SP3 shoots one free-throw and lands it in. His teammates head towards him and gives him a quick high five of encouragement. Score: 35-32.

SP3 shoots the last free-throw and lands it in. Score: 35-33.

 **Period two is over. The score is resulting in 51-43.** Apparently the Jefferson Knights were feeling more confident.

It was half time, where teams could practice for a bit.

The coach of the Jefferson Knights had something to say.

"HEY GUYS, MOVE THE BALL, DON'T STICK WITH IT. MAKE PLAYS, PASSES, DO PICKS AND ROLLS, STOP BEING STUPID! NOW GET READY TO PRACTICE!" The coach shouted.

Ash was practicing layups, two-point shots, and fade-away shots.

Barry was practicing layups and crazy three-point shots.

Gary was practicing slam dunks, moves, excessive dribbling and fade-away shots.

Drew was practicing three-pointers, sophisticated dribbling, and fade-away shots.

Buck was practicing quick layups, two-point shots, and screens.

"BRING IT IN TEAM, GET READY TO CHEER!" The coach shouted.

"1, 2, 3, JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!" The Jefferson Knights team cheered, Ash cheered at his loudest.

"1,2,3, SAINT PAUL STRIKERS!" The Saint Paul Strikers cheered louder, which gave the Jefferson Knights some cold shivers.

 **Period 3 has started.**

SP4 receives the ball and crosses over Barry, Ash and Gary that were on defense had to collapse on him, then he passed to the wide open SP1, and he does a SLAM DUNK. Score: 51-45.

Ash gets the ball and starts dribbling towards the net, confronted by SP1. He passed to Gary and then passed back to Ash, he does a fade-away shot; SP1 failed to block the shot and Ash's ball bounces off the backboard and lands in the net. Score: 53-45.

SP5 receives the ball and passes to SP1, he began to dribble up to the basket, SP1 crosses over Ash and had two defenders collapse on him, Drew stole SP1's ball and passed to Buck. He begins to dribble fast towards the net, then passes to Barry. He shoots the two-point shot and lands it in. Score: 55-45.

SP2 passes to SP3; he dribbles to half court; a screen gets set on Drew blocking him from moving to the left, meaning he has to go back which costs a bit more time. SP3 crosses over Drew easily by the screen and scores a layup. Score: 55-47.

Gary gets the ball and passes to Drew; he passes to Ash. Now they are on the other side of the court, they are confronted by defensive pressure once again, Ash's ball gets stolen right after he was going to pass. The Jefferson Knights struggle to get back on defense, SP4 scores a slam dunk. Score: 55-47.

Ash passes the ball to Barry; he passes back to Ash. Drew sets up a screen on SP1; he crosses over SP1 due to the screen, but SP2 is now covering Ash. He passes to Drew, he is wide open for a three-point shot and takes it. Fortunately, it lands in. Score: 58-47.

SP3 gets the ball and dribbles to half court, he passes to SP2, then passes to SP5 and does a quick three-point shot which gets blocked by Barry. But SP5 recovers the ball and moves the ball to SP4. Gary attempts to steal SP4's ball but fails; Gary remains tight in defense. SP4 passes to SP3; SP5 runs into the key, making him wide open. SP3 gives the ball to the wide open SP5 that has jumped in mid-air and scored a slam dunk. Score: 58-49

Ash dribbles to half court and passes the ball to Buck. Unfortunately, his ball gets stolen by SP3. Now the team is getting nervous; they went back on defense. A wide open SP2 got passed to and took a three-point shot; he lands it in. Score: 58-52.

 **Period 3 has ended, the score resulting in 58-66. Saint Paul Strikers are now in the lead.**

The Jefferson Knights decided to have a quick time out on their bench.

"Oh damn, the Saint Paul Strikers are in the lead now," Misty said, worriedly.

"I know right? COME ON JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!" May cheers in an attempt to encourage them. Dawn, as usual, says nothing.

The Jefferson Knights in the bench.

"SPACING, GET OPEN! DON'T BE SELFISH, PROTECT THE FREAKING BASKET! THE BASKET IS YOUR GOD DAMN LIFE,' The coach yelled.

"Boys, you got to treat this game like you were going to die today, the basket is your life, each time the opposing team scores on the basket, it's like a portion of your body is removed, and when they score more times on us, it's going to reach the point where your entire body disappears. YOU GOT TO STAY ACTIVE; YOU GOT TO STOP SHOWING THEM YOU ARE WEAK, YOU ARE STRONG, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONES IN THIS ENTIRE UNIVERSE TO BE IN SUCH A GAME, YOU ARE LUCKY TO BE IN THE CHAMPIONSHIPS, YOU ARE fortunate to BE THIS SKILLED. WE ARE A TEAM, YOU HOLD EACH OTHER LIKE MAGNETS, SO MAKE THE MOST OF IT! DON'T LET THE OPPOSING TEAM BREAK YOU UP INTO PIECES. YOU ALL ARE ONE BIG MACHINE THAT WILL TEAR DOWN EVERYTHING IN THEIR PATH BECAUSE THAT IS WHO WE ARE!"

The team starts cheering slowly with an angry tone.

"BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IN EACH OTHER, NOTHING CAN STOP US IF WE WORK TOGETHER, EVERY BASKET IN THIS GAME COUNTS, EVERY POSITION COUNTS, EVERY SINGLE STUPID MOVE YOU DO COUNTS, EVERY STEP COUNTS. EVERY SHOT IS NECCESARY. IF YOU CAN'T DRIBBLE OR DO THE SHOT, JUST F- DO IT! NOBODY CAN STOP YOU, YOU GOT TO THINK IN YOURSELF A GOAL, I WISH I MADE 10 SICK THREE-POINTERS IN THIS GAME AND WIN IT; YOU GOT TO BELIEVE HARD IN THAT GOAL; YOU CAME HERE TO WIN, NOT TO LOSE! MAYBE THIS WILL HELP, THINK YOURSELF A GOAL THAT IF YOU WIN THIS GAME, YOU GET A GOD DAMN GIRLFRIEND. WHO ARE WE?!" The coach shouted.

"JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!" The team yelled.

"LOUDER!"

"JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!"

"LOUDER!"

"JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!"

"NOW LET'S GO, BOYS, GO AND WIN THIS GAME LIKE IT WAS THE DAY THAT YOU WERE GOING TO DIE IN!"

"YEAH, LET'S GO!" Gary said, shouting along with the team.

The entire audience was roaring; the intensity of the game became three times bigger than before. The audience was cheering very loudly; May can't hear Misty talking to her.

"MISTY, SPEAK A BIT LOUDER PLEASE," May yelled.

"THEY SEEM SO PUMPED UP. I BET THE JEFFERSON KNIGHTS HAD THEIR COACH DO A MOTIVATION SPEECH!" Misty yelled.

 **Period 4 has started; this is the last session of the basketball championships. The score is at blazing 58-66, the Saint Paul Strikers are in the lead.**

Ash receives the ball and heads straight to the three-point line. He calls for a screen; Buck sets up a pick, he passes SP1 and then is covered by SP3, due to screen switch. Ash sees nobody open; he then decides to go for the net, luckily he crossed over SP3 and did a quick layup. Score: 60-66.

SP4 gets the ball and passes to SP1. A quick screen was set up on Ash and SP1 moves past Ash and shoots a two-point shot which lands in. What a smart play. Score: 60-68.

Mr. Norman was yelling at the Jefferson Knights to try harder.

Gary gets the ball and starts dribbling. He passes to Barry, who is going to be rushed. He quickly gave the ball to Buck; Ash moved into the paint open, Buck bounced the ball to Ash, he goes to do the layup but then gets blocked by SP1. The ball got launched to Drew. He quickly does a two-point fade away, and it lands perfectly on the net. Score: 62-70.

SP4 gets the ball and passes to SP1; then he passes to SP2. He goes to shoot the three-point shot but then gets blocked by Drew and sends the ball flying half court. Ash is running so fast to the ball, he grabs it and starts dribbling almost instantly. He scores a wide open slam dunk; the audience is going crazy. Score: 64-70.

SP1 receives the ball and passes to SP2, Gary rushes and successfully steals the ball after all his failed attempts, he gives the ball to Buck, who was wide open, decides to do a three-pointer, and it GOES IN! Score: 67-70. The audience is getting more intense.

 **20 minutes into the period, the score is 80-80.**

Ash dribbles like LeBron James, he crosses over SP1 and SP3 and does a one-handed slam dunk. Score: 82-80

SP2 gets the ball and passes to SP5, then he passes to SP4, they do a passing play, putting as much pressure on the defense. SP4 throws the ball to the wide-open SP3 that has moved to the other side of the three-point line and shoots a clean three-point basket. Score: 82-83.

Barry gets the ball and passes to Ash. He looks at the time and sees that there are two minutes left, they got to settle this fast. Ash attempts to dribble through the defense but fails and passes to Drew, he tries to dribble but fails; his ball almost got stolen. They can't afford to lose control of the ball; Drew makes a quick throw to Gary. Ash and Buck are moving around trying to get wide open, but the defense was too tight. Suddenly, SP2 rushes to Gary and steals his ball; he is rushing to the wide-open net, the offense that now became defense is now running to prevent SP2 from scoring but it was too late, he scores a layup. The score: 82-85.

 **There is one minute left on the clock.**

Ash gets the ball and passes to Barry, he passes to Gary, then passes to Drew. Gary sets up a screen on SP2 that was busy covering Drew, but SP1 was there to switch, Drew throws the ball to Barry, who was wide-open by moving across the court, he shoots the three-point shot but misses. Out of nowhere, Gary grabs the rebound and slams the ball into the net. The score is 84-85.

The Jefferson Knights were surprised, the opposing team immediately began to rush to their basket right after they scored, SP5 dribbles and crosses over Barry and scores a layup. Score: 84-87.

Drew receives the ball, he passes to the wide open Ash on the side but then gets fouled by SP1 pushing him. Ash gets two free-throws. Ash shoots the first free-throw, and it fails to get in. His team high-five him for encouragement. He shoots the last free-throw, and it goes in. Score: 85-87.

SP4 passes to SP1. They begin to stall the game by passing to each other a lot; the team had to prevent them from stalling the game. Ash quickly stole SP1's ball and with precise movement, gives the ball to Barry but then the ball got sent out of bounds by SP2. THERE WERE 3 SECONDS ON THE CLOCK!

Barry was looking to pass to someone; he spots Ash running wide openly, he quickly lobs the ball to Ash. THERE WAS 1 SECOND ON THE CLOCK. Ash had the ball in his hands; he was busy thinking if he should shoot until he heard a familiar voice and it sounded like Dawn. "ASH! GO FOR THE THREE-POINTER, WIN THIS GAME FOR OUR SCHOOL!" Ash smiled.

 **ASH SHOOTS THE GAME WINNING BUZZER BEATER THREE-POINTER.**

Everyone watches in shock, as the ball slowly bounces off the backboard and… GOES IN! THE SCORE: 88-87. EVERYONE STARTED ROARING LIKE TWO FOOTBALL FIELDS MERGED. THE JEFFERSON KNIGHTS! Gary, Drew, Barry, and Buck all fell on Ash in happiness.

"WOOOOOOOOO," Gary yelled.

"YES, WE WON!" Drew was yelling along with him.

"ASH YOU ARE OUR MAN!" The coach yelling in the distance.

The team was so happy that some of them were even crying. They lifted Ash into the air. Everyone was yelling Jefferson Knights all the way.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the champions of today's basketball season are none other than the all mighty, JEFFERSON KNIGHTS!" The announcer gives Ash a golden basketball trophy, he admired it and almost cried. The audience was roaring.

After the game had ended, Ash went to meet the girls.

"Great job Ash, you did spectacular! You got the game winning shot!" Misty said.

"Thanks!" That game was intense as hell. Ash spotted Dawn smiling, he somewhat blushed and smiled too. Dawn noticed this but turned her face away to prevent Ash from seeing the massive redness on her cheeks.

The school day was not over, there were only two more classes to finish, Ash was expecting upon entry into a class, they would roar for him, and he would have a lot of fangirls.


	9. Chapter 9: Deepest Apology

**The basketball championships were over; Jefferson Knights emerged victoriously. They kept their trophy at the school trophy showcase.**

The bell has rung, signaling that the next class is social studies.

Everyone has arrived to class; a group of fangirls met Ash.

"Hey Ash, you were pretty amazing at the championships," Zoey said.

"Ash, you are better than Gary," Jessie said, and she touched Ash's face with her finger. Ash immediately scooted to the left away from Jessie.

"Uh thanks," Ash said, flattered by the girls. Dawn in the distance was jealous.

God damn it, why does Ash have so many girls surrounding and complimenting him? All he did was just win a basketball championship, they are annoying, I just wish they shut up with their fangirling, it is irritating me! Dawn is mad in her thoughts.

Misty and Gary were talking too much in class; they were sent to detention, and they will get out of detention when class time is over.

Drew was laughing "Hahaha, Gary and Misty got forwarded to the office because they were talking too much,"

"That is not nice Drew!" May hit him softly on his arm.

"Oh, that was fun," May blushed.

"What are you talking about?" May asked.

"I'm talking about that sweet arm massage you gave me," Drew said, grinning.

"Shut up,"

"Whatever," Drew said, smirking.

"Also, Dawn seems a bit happy today," May said, smiling.

"Oh, finally, those two better not fight again," Drew said, bored.

 **The bell has rung; it was time for the next option class.**

Dawn, Drew, and Misty had a jazz band class.

Ash, May, and Gary had aerodynamics class.

 **In jazz band**

Dawn plays the trumpet in jazz band. Drew plays the saxophone, and Misty still plays the flute.

They were playing a song called 'My Favorite Things' and they were going to go through rehearsing and fixing mistakes.

"Dawn, you must play louder in bar four," The teacher said. Dawn just nodded in frustration

The jazz band continued to play the song; they had to stop each time to solve a mistake.

"Drew, play soft in bar 7, how many times do I need to tell you this?" The teacher threw down her stick.

"You don't need to tell me anything, the song tells me to play it loud," Drew said, grinning.

"Do you want to go to the office?" The teacher said, frustrated with his behavior.

"No, because I enjoy this class," Drew said.

The band proceeded, they had to stop at bar 34 in the song.

"Misty, you need to slur those notes in bar 40, you also need to play a bit louder, barely anyone can hear you," The teacher said, Misty was frustrated.

 **Meanwhile in aerodynamics class.**

Ash, Gary, and May are in a group building an experimental airplane.

"I've got the elevators on the aircraft built," Said Ash.

May finishes with the airplane frame structure. The model measures 30 centimeters in length.

"This little airplane is going to fly a huge distance now that I've got the wings just right in that sweet spot," Gary said with a confident tone.

"Looks like we've finished, it's very light and could fly a long distance," May adds the final touches on the airplane

The aerodynamics teacher asks the class to go outside to test the model aircraft. He stands on an elevated hill near the football field outside and begins to test airplanes one by one.

"Look at the short distance the other student's airplanes fly. They are bad at building stuff," Ash chuckles

"Hahaha, who might have thought? It looks like they've been smoking while building the airplane model," Gary laughed with Ash.

"Sheesh guys, no need to be rude; they tried their hardest, OK?" May said with a grave accent.

"Whatever, May, no wonder why you can't get Drew as your boyfriend," Gary said with a grin on his face

"SHUT UP!" Said May, with her face magically turning red.

The teacher picks up the group's airplane and gets ready to throw it. Ash is a bit excited to see it fly. Gary confidently looking at the teacher pretending like the airplane will still go 100 kilometers even if the teacher puts no power into his throw.

"Here it goes!" Said an excited May.

The teacher throws the airplane; The group watches with amazement on how far the aircraft goes and it beats the distances of other students until, the plane loses its wings, and its parts start to rip off. Later, the airplane crashes into the grass; the once called plane now looks like pieces of confetti.

"Well, at least it flew the furthest," Said Drew even though he still looks apathetic.

Ash facepalmed. "The materials were too weak to withstand the heavy gusts, plus the wings are left loose in the aircraft frame,"

"Looks like it's time to go back to the drawing board," Said May with a frustrated voice.

The students to their back to the class to make changes for the second flight test

Ash grabs the materials from the supply desk in the classroom and hands it over to the group

"Alright, we will need a stronger frame and improved connections between parts of the aircraft," Said Gary, ready to put in a lot of work.

"I've got an improved nose cone for the plane; it should improve the aerodynamic property and increase reliability." Said May

After a few minutes, the aircraft model is fully assembled with new, stronger materials and aerodynamic improvements. Gary is very opportunistic that the airplane will fly without getting shredded to pieces.

The class heads outside again for the final flight test, which will also determine the marks.

"This crap better not break" Said Gary, who is finally getting nervous.

The teacher picks the airplane that Ash, Gary, and May had made, then throws the plane down the field. The aircraft traveled significantly longer and this time, it did not break. The plane crash lands onto the grassy field with minor damage.

"That was incredible!" May celebrated.

Ash, Gary, and May received a 20/20 on the airplane test.

The bell has rung; the final class comes to an end. The school is over. Everybody started packing up and got ready to go home. Every other student in the school has already gone home or were waiting outside for pickups.

Ash, Dawn, Gary, Misty, Drew and May met outside.

"What a day it is, we won the basketball championships and also received a 20 out of 20 on the airplane test!" Gary said, happily.

"Yeah, I loved the airplane test," Misty said, in agreement with Gary.

"I found this day fascinating, at least it was not boring," May said, with glee.

"Jazz band was annoying, but everything else was fun," Drew said.

"Hey Ash, do you want to talk for a moment in private?" Dawn said, in a sad tone.

Oh shit, Ash thought. This talk might be dreadful. Ash nodded and followed Dawn close to her house. Nobody was allowed to follow them.

"I wonder what they are up to," Drew asked.

"Same, but we can't follow them, we will just have to wait and see soon," May replied.

"Boy, I bet it's going to be something devastating," Gary said.

"I hope it doesn't go bad," Misty said.

Meanwhile with Ash and Dawn.

Ash and Dawn have arrived at a park located near the school they are in, it was minuscule, full of trees and plants.

 **It was 3:44 PM.**

"Ash, I'm very sorry for what I did to you today, I realized that I was an out of control, a mentally deficient girl that deserves nothing but stay at home locked in shame. I treated you in an adverse manner, because all of one small incident at the mall, I feel foolish for treating you like shit, please forgive me!" Dawn begins to cry. She is shocked when Ash hugged her.

"You know, the others have apologized for a small mistake, but we didn't. We dragged this fight long enough that it started to worry everybody, surely it was my fault too, I should have been patient, but it was basketball practice that made me tired, I'm also sorry for insulting you in classes, it was only self-defense," Ash said, with his head down. Dawn lifted his head up.

"I'm so glad you forgive me; can we promise from now on we won't have any fights?" Dawn held up her pinkie promise, and Ash accepted it.

"One more thing, Ash," Dawn said, nervously.

"Yeah?"

To Ash's surprise, Dawn's lips met Ash's lips, her hands around Ash's neck. Dawn's eyes were closed, Ash had his eyes wide opened, but then surrendered and closed them to enjoy the kiss. Ash felt one atomic bomb explode within him; she felt so good, her lips on mine felt like my life was complete. Ash was enjoying the kiss and deepened it by crushing her lips, she was caught off guard, then she replied with the same force.

"Ash, I love you," Dawn said, smiling.

"I loved you when I first saw you," Ash said back, smiling.

"Can we keep this a secret, please? Let them find out, it will be more fun that way," Dawn said, smiling. Ash nodded.

They both held hands and advanced back to school.

* * *

 **Sorry for the short chapter! I hope you enjoyed it.**


	10. Chapter 10: Romantic Timeout

Ash and Dawn arrived at their friends; they stopped holding hands when they spotted Gary, Misty, Drew, and May.

"Hey, guys! Welcome back, what did you talk about?" Misty asked, grinning.

"You will figure out soon," Dawn said, grinning.

"Oh, alright," Misty replied.

"I think they are on to something," May whispered into Drew's ear. Drew nodded.

"Well, you both don't seem mad, are you guys dating?" Gary said, smirking.

"NO, WE ARE NOT!" Ash and Dawn yelled, their faces are burning red hot. Gary fell.

"HOLY JESUS, NO NEED TO YELL," Gary shouted.

"Guys, how about we come to my house?" May asked.

"Sure!" Misty said, everybody nodded and went to May's house.

 **The group has arrived at May's house.**

"So, how about we play a game of truth or dare?" May asked, grinning.

"Sure!" Everybody agreed and took a spot on the floor.

"Alright, I will go first because I live in this house, Gary, truth or dare?" May asked Gary.

"Dare," Gary said. Like usual, he is always going to pick dare because he thinks he is manly.

Hmm, May in her thoughts, I think Gary and Misty are meant for each other, let's see how this works. "GARY, I DARE YOU TO KISS MISTY!" Gary's eyes go wide open; his face has now become a red hot potato.

"I WANT TO CHOOSE TRUTH!" Gary said, attempting to save himself from the dare. Misty was blushing.

"Nope, you cannot back out!" May said.

"Fine!" Gary went to Misty and kissed her. Their lips met, and they stayed in that position for 30 seconds until they had to break for breath.

"Misty, I love you," Gary said.

"I love you too, Gary," Misty said.

Everybody was cheering to their new relationship.

"Wow!" May squealed. Dawn squealed too.

"That was very romantic," Drew said.

"My turn! May truth or dare?" Gary asked he had an evil grin on his face.

Crap, that scary look on his face scares me! I'm going to try and go truth. May said in her thoughts.

"Truth!" May said.

"Is it true that you and Drew were making out in the bathroom?" May instantly blushed like crazy

"NO, IT IS NOT TRUE!" Everybody started laughing.

"My turn! Drew, truth or dare?" Dawn said, smirking.

"Truth," Drew said.

"Do you love May?" Dawn asked. May's face heated up.

"I do," Drew said, everybody started to say "Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss" and so on until they do so. Drew began to lean towards May, both blushing intensely until their lips met. They were so nervous, but now it looks like it doesn't even exist. They remained in the kissing pose for 28 seconds.

"Well, that's two relationships created in one day," Ash said, laughing.

"Yay! Drew and I are a couple!" May hugged Drew.

"Y- You don't have to say it like that!" Drew said, blushing.

"Aww, why not?" May said, giving him a cute cat face.

"Nothing, whatever." Drew knew that he can't disappoint her.

"Misty, truth or dare?" Drew asked, with an evil smile.

"Dare!" Misty said.

"I dare you to jump off into that lake and get wet!" Drew said, laughing.

"WHAT? NO!" Misty yelled.

"A dare is a dare!" Drew said, still laughing.

"Fine, I will get you back for doing this!" Misty went out of the house.

2 minutes later. Misty comes back into the room with soaked clothes. Everyone started laughing.

"I hate you damn Drew," Misty said.

"Ash, truth or dare?" Misty asked.

"Truth," Ash said, nervously.

"Do you still hate Dawn?" Misty asked. Ash gave a sigh of relief it wasn't the dare he was expecting.

"No I don't," Ash said. Everyone eyes open up a bit.

"Dawn, truth or dare," Ash said, smirking.

"Truth," Dawn said, somewhat smiling.

"Dawn, do you love me?" Ash asked, smiling.

Everyone is shocked, they are now like protons about to collide.

"Yes, I do," Dawn replied.

"Show us proof than," Misty said.

"Sure," Dawn replied.

Ash and Dawn leaned towards one another until their lips slowly met. The kiss was slow and passionate, it was full of pleasure, they were feeling each other's feelings just by slowly deepening the kiss. They remained in that pose for 30 seconds.

The game of truth or dare was over. May and Misty were squealing at Ash and Dawn's new relationship.

"Ashy-boy finally has a girlfriend," Gary said, smiling.

"Don't call me that Gary!" Ash shouted.

"I see all of us are in a relationship now, what a coincidence," Drew said.

"Ash, do you want to go on our first date? It will be ice-skating," Dawn asked.

"Sure, how about right now?" Ash said, smiling.

"Let's go then!" Dawn said, excitedly.

Ash and Dawn left.

"Misty, how about we watch a movie for our first date?" Gary asked.

"Yes! We should," Misty squealed.

"Alright, babe."

Gary and Misty left.

"Looks like we are the only ones left," Drew said.

"Yeah," May replied.

"How about we go to the world's finest restaurant and spend our date there, we also get to explore a few things on the way, I will pay for everything, beautiful flower," Drew says, handing her a rose.

May squeals; "Sure!" She places a peck on Drew's right cheek. They both head off.

 **Meanwhile with Ash and Dawn.**

Ash and Dawn had arrived at the ice skating park. They saw some adults, children, and teens skating around on the ice, and some couples also had skates too.

Ash and Dawn went to the cashier to buy ice-skates.

"Two ice-skates?" The clerk asked.

"Yes, for the both of us," Dawn shyly said.

The cashier gave Ash and Dawn their skates.

"Make sure to hold hands while skating, so you don't fall!" The clerk said, smirking. Ash and Dawn blushed and shyly nodded.

Ash nervously went onto the ice, afraid he will embarrass himself and the audience will be laughing at him until Dawn put her hand on his shoulder.

"No need to be nervous Ash, don't mind the audience, plus what the cashier said before, we will hold hands, so you don't fall," Dawn said, smiling.

"U- Thanks," Ash said, blushing.

Dawn holds Ash's hand, and they start to skate on the ice.

"See Ash, you are not that bad at skating," Dawn said, blushing.

"Thanks for the compliment," Ash is flattered by Dawn's comment.

There is music playing in the park, Ash and Dawn were slowly skating, doing laps around the ice. They decided to go up a notch.

Ash and Dawn skate left and right in sync, Dawn does laps around Ash for two times.

Some of the spectators pay their attention to Ash and Dawn, dancing like two beautiful birds.

"They do make a great couple," One of the people in the audience said.

"They do belong to each other,"

Ash and Dawn immediately turn shy when they hear the audience talking about them.

A slow romantic song begins to play; there are only a few people skating on the ice. Ash and Dawn were holding both hands while skating.

Ash and Dawn stop skating to talk to each other.

"Ash, I'm enjoying this date," Dawn said, smiling.

"Me too," Ash replied.

Ash and Dawn begin to lean in for their last kiss before the skating is over. The audience is awing at the romantic moment.

Ash and Dawn were deep in enjoying the kiss, Ash cupped Dawn's cheeks, Ash and Dawn's hands were linked together in front of them. They were so distracted in their kiss; they didn't realize that people were cheering for them. Then the audience began to whine because it was time for the ice-skate park to close.

It took someone to break up their kiss.

"Hey guys, you been kissing for a minute, are you even out of breath? I'm sorry to interrupt your moment, but the ice-skate park is closing," The authority said.

Ash and Dawn immediately pulled back and apologized, they returned their skates and headed off to get some ice-cream.

Ash and Dawn brought vanilla ice-cream from the cashier and sat down on the bench and started eating the ice-cream.

"Mhm, this ice-cream is so good,' Ash said.

"I agree!" Dawn replied.

They both finished eating their ice-cream. Unfortunately, it was time to go.

"Dawn, I'm very glad you enjoyed the date,"

"It was fantastic Ash! We should do this often,"

Ash and Dawn gave each other a small peck on the lips and headed off opposite directions to their house.

 **Meanwhile with Gary and Misty.**

Gary and Misty arrived at Cineplex. Gary went to buy the tickets for the movie they were about to watch.

"Gary, thanks for taking me out to the movies, I appreciate it," Misty said, blushing.

"No problem, I would do anything for you,"

Gary and Misty went to the room that the movie was going to play in, Misty followed Gary; they got the beat seats, right in the middle and right height.

"Misty, stay here. I will get the popcorn and stuff, what drink do you want?" Gary asked.

"I want Pepsi, please, thanks, Gary," Misty said. Gary went off to get the stuff.

Gary went up to the cashier and started ordering.

"I would like two big bags of popcorn, one drink of Pepsi and one drink of Coke. Also, a bag of M&M's please." Gary said.

"No problem, that will be $23.79," Cashier said.

"Well that isn't a bad price," Gary pays $23.79 and receives the supplies.

Gary heads back to the room #32. Where the movie they were going to watch is about to play at. Gary spots Misty, he sighed in relief that his seat was not taken.

"Here you go Misty, your bag of popcorn and Pepsi," Gary said.

"Thanks, Gary!" Misty said.

The advertisements were going on for a few minutes and then the movie started.

Gary and Misty were enjoying most of the cool dramatic scenes in the film; they already devoured through 50% of their popcorn bag. Gary was enjoying this; he enjoyed the popcorn and his drink more than the movie. Misty didn't notice.

The movie was finished, Misty and Gary decided to watch the credits while talking to each other. Their popcorn bag and drink were empty.

"Gary, I loved the date so far, we should do this again sometimes," Misty said, blushing.

"Sure, I enjoyed it too, without you, I wouldn't have enjoyed the movie," Gary said, with redness on his cheeks.

"Aww, that is so sweet of you to say, Gary," Misty smiled.

Gary and Misty got off from their seat and exited the theater.

"Thanks for everything Gary," Misty said

"No problem," Gary leans towards Misty.

Their kiss was more sincere, passionate, more of the right thing to do. They had to break for air.

"Want me to walk with you back home, Misty?"

"Sure,"

The two of them starts walking to Misty's house.

"Misty, what do you like to do on the weekends?" Gary asked.

"Oh well, I like to play some games on the weekend, a bit of sport too. I sometimes get bored in the weekend, what about you?" Misty asked.

"I love the weekend; I get to play as many sports as I want," Gary replied.

"You sure do love sports eh?" Misty said.

"I sure do, anyways, is this your house?" Gary asked.

"Yeah, anyways, goodbye Gary! She gives Gary a quick peck on his lips,"

"Goodbye!" Gary waved. He felt complete; he was happy as long as Misty loves him.

 **Meanwhile, Drew and May are dining at a restaurant. The place looks marvelous with beautifully decorated tables, good quality seats, magnificent looking lamps hanging from the ceiling of the roof, and relaxing background music.**

The couple sits beside a window where they could view the mixed colors of the evening sky; setting the mood for suggestive, romantic conversations. They are obviously nervous and feeling a bit awkward since this is their first date.

"Looks very cool, doesn't it?" Said Drew, casually.

"Yeah, thanks for taking me out here" Said May, now feeling confident that she is out on a date with Drew.

The couple open up their menu book and begin to choose what meal they will have.

The waitress comes with a notebook and a pencil.

"Good evening, what can I do for you today?"

"I would like chicken noodle soup and steamed rice" Said Drew, trying to act like the 'man.'

"I'd like to have the special Caesar salad and chicken fried rice" Said May with a confident look.

"What beverages can I get for you?"

"I will have Coke, and she will have Sprite" Said Drew, stepping up his game. May nodded in approval

The waitress leaves. May and Drew are in excruciating silence, looking around the restaurant and occasionally making eye contact. Finally, one of them tries to grease the wheels of the conversation.

"You like noodle soup?" Said May, breaking the ice.

"Always liked them, they have an excellent texture," Drew responded; trying to ignite a conversation

May's cheeks are starting to turn red as she does not have any idea on how to answer.

"What subjects are you interested in?" Drew asked, trying to increase the momentum.

"I, I'm interested in physical education, what about you?" May nervously replied, trying to keep her face from turning red. Why did I just say P.E! May thinks to herself.

Drew felt like he has been shot in the chest by that question. He is now starting to feel nervous

"Oh oh, um, I like physical education and math" Drew responded, still trying to keep the conversation under control.

A few minutes later, the waitress comes with a tray that contains the food and beverages May and Drew have asked. She leaves it on the desk

"Here you go, enjoy your food!"

Drew unwraps the spoon and fork and begins to eat the chicken noodle soup. May moves the salad plate and starts eating the chicken fried rice.

May sees that Drew is enjoying his meal.

It's my time to shine. May says in her thoughts.

"Drew, you are enjoying that chicken noodle soup, is that your favorite food?" May asked, looking like she's handling this date.

"You are right, this is my favorite meal, and you are my favorite girl." Said Drew, with unbeatable confidence. May's face instantly turned tomato red.

"T, th, Thanks, Drew, I appreciate it," Said May, while covering her face.

After a while, the couple finished their meal and Drew paid.

Drew and May leave the restaurant and sit on a bench. It is night, and the moon shines with beauty

"That was a nice date," Drew said, nervously putting his arm around May, making her red.

"I really enjoyed it Drew; we should go out again another time," May said, Drew's face turns red

Drew and May eye each other, then suddenly, they make out.

* * *

 **End of Story, thanks for reading! Please R &R any chapter or the entire story. :)**


End file.
